Friday, June 5, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
SRI LANKA: Rolex Enterprise Award Galvanises Safe Lamp Project
Feizal Samath
- Just as high school student Pushpa Kanthi was sitting down to study at night, a kerosene oil lamp on the table accidentally toppled, engulfing her in flames in her home in Sri Lanka.
“My nylon dress caught fire,” the 16 year old whispered while waiting to be wheeled into the operation theatre at Colombo’s National Hospital with serious burn injuries on the left side of her body, including her left hand.
The small and crudely-made oil lamps are the most common cause of burn injuries in Sri Lanka. Many villages like Kanthi’s which is 70 kms from the capital have no electricity. More than 50 percent of homes islandwide are lit by unsafe “bottle” lamps.
“We are still using bottle lamps at home after the accident as there is no choice,” says Kanthi’s elder sister, Mangalika who’s at the hospital with her sister.
The lamps, often made at home, are just empty bottles with a wick sticking out of a disk instead of a cap which could screw the bottle shut. Inherently unsteady, they tumble over at the slightest touch spilling the highly inflammable kerosene oil.
Most burn victims are women and children. In the Colombo Hospital’s Burn’s Unit where Kanthi is receiving expert attention, Chitranganie Gunaratne, 26, lies in a more serious condition with 50 percent burns including on her face.
Gunaratne who lives in central Colombo where there is electricity was using a bottle lamp in the kitchen because kerosene oil is cheaper than electricity and she did not want to disturb her sleeping 18-month-old son, she said.
The night of the accident she was making tea for her policeman husband who had come home late. “My head stuck the table knocking the lamp over. The nylon dress I was wearing caught fire,” she explains, speaking with great difficulty.
Neither she nor Kanthi would have been in the hospital if they had used a safe and inexpensive bottle lamp that has been created by a Sri Lankan doctor, alarmed by the number of burn patients in hospitals.
It was in 1992 that Dr Wijaya Godakumbura, a consultant surgeon at the Colombo National Hospital, devised a bottle lamp which is heavy and flat, so it cannot tip over when knocked, with a screw-on metal lid that ensures the oil does not leak out.
The bottle lamp was soon approved by the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA), the College of Surgeons of Sri Lanka and the National Committee for the Prevention of Accidents. Manufacturing began in 1994.
Dr Godakumbura, 58 and now also director of the SLMA’s Safe Bottle Lamp project, has received recognition at home and abroad for his creation. Last month, he received the Rolex Award for Enterprise and 50,000 dollars in prize money.
“His achievements are all the more remarkable if one takes into account that he is not a burn specialist but a general surgeon and university lecturer who has carried out this laudable social project in his spare time, often using his own funds as an advance to pay for various activities,” the Rolex citation noted.
More than 40 people worldwide have received the Rolex award since its institution in 1976. The awards are offered every two or three years by the Swiss-based makers of the Rolex wristwatch to new inventions and projects which advance human well-being.
Other winners for 1998 were Bolivian social psychologist Cristina Bubba Zamora, South African scientist-turned-tracker Louis Liebenberg, French vineyard owner Jean-Francois Perett and Canadian environmentalist Amanda Vincent for her work in the Philippines.
The Sri Lankan doctor says he’s putting the prize money into the Safe Lamp project. “Our goal is to replace 60 percent of the unsafe lamps by the year 2001,” he points out. “This involves the manufacture and sales of a staggering 1.8 million lamps, a formidable task but the impact on Sri Lanka would be enormous.”
He adds: “Besides easing the misery caused … we could save the country 4.4 million dollars in medical expenses (by 2001).” According to the doctor, the state-run Colombo Hospital alone spends more than 400,000 dollars annually on burn patients.
Dr Godakumbura hopes the government will let him use the health care network to promote and sell the lamps. “If we could make use of the 250,000 family health workers spread across the country, we would be close to achieving our target,” he says.
“How to transport the lamps to rural areas and get them into
the hands of those who need them” has been a problem, he told IPS.
Some 150,000 lamps were distributed free with money donated by the President’s Office, the Canadian High Commission, private companies and even from science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.
But with funds a chronic problem, they had to resort to selling the lamps, first at below the cost price, and from January 1998 at the cost price of 20 US cents.
The money from the Rolex Award will be used to set up a sales outlet in every main town across the island, and for promotion through posters, handbills and lectures in schools.
Dr Godakumbura is hopeful that the international attention on the project since the announcement of the Rolex Award, would inspire other countries to replicate the Sri Lankan project.
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SRI LANKA: Rolex Enterprise Award Galvanises Safe Lamp Project
Feizal Samath
- Just as high school student Pushpa Kanthi was sitting down to study at night, a kerosene oil lamp on the table accidentally toppled, engulfing her in flames in her home in Sri Lanka.
(more…)
Print
|
SRI LANKA: Rolex Enterprise Award Galvanises Safe Lamp Project
Feizal Samath
- Just as high school student Pushpa Kanthi was sitting down to study at night, a kerosene oil lamp on the table accidentally toppled, engulfing her in flames in her home in Sri Lanka.
(more…)
Print
|
