Two volunteers of Horizon Lanka using mesh internet in the Wi-Fi Zone

With funding support from ISIF http://isif.asia/, Horizon Lanka embarked on a project to expand its mesh internet network to the entire Mahavilachchiya village. Earlier, coverage was given only to a section of the village.

By 2009, Dialog Telekom had erected a high-capacity tower in Kiralpetiyawa, an underprivileged area which was considered ’the Siberia of Mahavilachchiya’, due to lack of basic facilities in the hamlet. Horizon Lanka thought its ideal that the mesh internet coverage could be extended to Kiralpetiyawa, but it had not been included in the original budget planning. This was explained to Dialog Telekom and Horizon Lanka requested Sri Lanka’s flagship telecom service provider to consider providing their tower facility to install mesh internet equipment free of charge as a CSR initiative. Usual monthly fees charged by telecommunication firms to share tower facilities are prohibitive for an organisation like Horizon Lanka. The much anticipated positive answer came readily from Dialog to use their tower. LankaCom, the mesh implementing company fixed mesh equipment in the Dialog tower few days back. Now the entire Kiralpetiyawa area enjoys mesh internet signals and a 500+ meter
Wi-Fi network exists around the Dialog tower. Signals from Dialog tower are strong enough to reach even distant Pemaduwa, the ‘downtown’ of Mahavilachchiya.

Dialog Telekom has been helping Horizon Lanka since 2002. First they provided low cost phone packages to Horizon Lanka staff and parents and then provided mobile access to a 50 meter radius exclusively around Horizon Lanka computer lab at a time Mahavilachchiya was not covered by Dialog. In 2006, Dialog donated IT equipment and paid salaries to one of our staff members for a year.

In December, 2006 Dialog covered Mahavilachchiya with its network on Horizon Lanka’s request even before they covered Mihintale, a bigger township.

Dialog was the first mobile company to cover Mahavilachchiya. In 2009, Dialog even expanded its coverage to entire Mahavilachchiya by providing coverage via its newly built tower in Kiralpetiyawa.

Horizon Lanka wishes to thank Dialog for its continued support over the years. We wish the company every success in its future endeavors.

Marijin Mostart

Miss Marijn Mostart from Holland came to Horizon Lanka in early November to work at Horizon Lanka as a volunteer teacher for two months. Marijin is the second volunteer sent by AIESEC, Sri Lanka Chapter. She is teaching both computers and English at Horizon Lanka. On Sundays she works at the Dhamma School in the village temple.

The group opposite Horizon Lanka building

A group of ICT teachers from Hanguranketha, led by Mr. D. M. S. D. Dissanayaka, the ICT Coordinator for Zonal Education Office, Hanguranketha visited Horizon Lanka, Mahavilachchiya on Friday, November 06, 2009. The trip was organized by Mr Dilina Priyanga Bandara, the Chief Organizer of their ICT club. The Horizon Lanka staff did few presentations about Horizon Lanka and how it uses technology to educate the village children and the youth.

Fixing the water pump

Horizon Lanka fixed a water pump to provide continuous water supply to its building and the garden. This year Mahavilachchiya faced a long drought as a result the pipe borne water supply was disturbed.  Hence Horizon Lanka decided to fix a water pump.

Inside the Office

Horizon Lanka building needed a color washing for a long time. Due to difficulties in raising funds this kept delaying. But we got the necessary funding from few generous donors from the United Kingdom last October. We thank those who contributed to this. Now the Horizon Lanka building looks anew. Now the youth at Horizon Lanka are volunteering in making the Horizon Lanka garden beautiful.

This is the list of the donors who contributed for color washing.

Mr. & Mrs. Roshan Hewavitarne
Mr. & Mrs. Dashantha Hewavitarne
Mr. & Mrs. Nimal Ekanayake
Ms Manel Wijayasinghe
Ms Surangani Piyadasa
Mr. & Mrs. Aneil Sirisena
Mr. Gavinash Sirisena

Originally Horizon Lanka had planned the upstairs of the building as the computer lab and downstairs as the multimedia lab. Since upstairs was rented to the BPO, both the computer lab and the multimedia room had to be functioned downstairs. But it did not have the proper electricity lining for computers.

Mr Ananda Sirisena and Subadra Sirisena who visited Horizon Lanka in August were impressed about Horizon Lanka and donated money in September 2009, to do the wiring for the computers. Now all the computers in the lab get electricity properly. We thank the Sirisenas for their generosity displayed.

Nine students have been selected to universities from Mahavilachchiya from the Advanced Level exam that was held last year. Six of these students have been ranked below 50 from the whole Anuradhapura district. All of these who were ranked below 50 have got A passes for all three subjects at the exam. Sidhdhartha (6), Thakshila (2) and Saliyamala (1) public schools have produced those students. Some of these students also studied computers and English at Horizon Lanka. Though scores of other students also have qualified for the university literally, they will not stand a chance to enter universities due to the tight competition at the universities in Sri Lanka.

Visit www.horizonlanka.org for more details.

Avian Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Colombo donated 5 licensed copies of antivirus software, Kaspersky to Horizon Lanka Foundation. Avian Technologies Pvt. Ltd is the official distributor of Kaspersky virus guard in Sri Lanka. We thank Avian for displaying its generosity.

Read this story written by Anusha Madhubhashini, a former student of Horizon Lanka, now a graduate of University of Colombo.