10 – 12 years
One of the trees in a forest starts talking to you
One day when I was travelling to the forest with my friends, I just stopped for a moment to have a rest. I went near a tree to lie down for a while. Suddenly I heard the noise of someone calling me. I looked everywhere but no one was there. It was only me and a big, beautiful tree. I went near the tree and suddenly it started to talk. It asked me, “Who are you little girl and what are you doing here alone in the forest?”
“I am Tharuli and I came to this forest to do some research on trees,” I said. The tree then said, “Very good, I can tell you everything about tree,” and it started to laugh. When it was laughing, some apples fell to the ground.
Tree: Little girl, do you know how important trees are?
Me: No, can you please explain to me beautiful tree…
Tree: Oh yes, I’ll start now.
Trees are not just silly things. All trees have life. Trees give us oxygen to breathe, food to eat, medicine for sicknesses, shade, houses for animals and wood for furniture. These are some of the examples of the advantages from trees. Without trees, you cannot live. Trees also take water to drink from the soil and minerals as food. Every part of the tree is important. So we should protect tree.
Me: Do you have friends?
Tree: Yes, I have many friends. Some of them are birds and the others are animals.
Me: Do you sleep at night?
Tree: Yes, even my friends sleep on me.
Me: I should go now. I will miss my friends if I don’t go. Goodbye to you dear tree. I will come again one day.
Tharuli Sandalini (12 years)
Vidura College, Thalawathugoda
13 – 15 years
What do you understand by democracy
Democracy in short, is a government by the people or their elected representatives favouring rights of the populace.
According to Abraham Lincoln, “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people,” and as per Sealer, “Democracy provides rights for everybody as a tool of governance.”
Presently, Sri Lankans are also ruled by democratic governance as accepted by most countries as a more desirable method of ‘good governance’ based on peoples’ participation with majority public opinion.
Well, the word democracy is derived from two Greek words ‘Demos’ and ‘Kratos’; denoting Public Power – The Power of the People. In fact, democratic governance has a long history originating from the Greek city state (Polis) of Athens; followed by the Vajji Kingdom of India in the 6th century BC and afterward in London, England due to the English Great Revolution in 1688. Out of the two direct and indirect main types of democracy, indirect democracy is more popular as representative democracy and as a result the present parliament came into being.
Democracy is a useful system of government because the parliament representatives are elected on the majority will and the government is formed by the party or group which elects the majority of representatives – who pass laws by the majority decision, through their votes.
Thus democracy is very important in a multi-cultural, multi-national country like Sri Lanka and it plays a major role in our society as a way of peaceful living. In fact a democratic society respects different opinions, taking decisions by consensus; respecting equality, while enjoying civil rights and fulfilling legal and moral duties as law-abiding citizens of good governance.
Neyali Abeyratna (15 years)
De Mazenod College, Kandana
