The John Keells English Day 2015, a drama and poetry competition organized among the John Keells English Language Scholarship Programme students was held today at the Bishop’s College Auditorium. This scholarship programme was launched in 2004 and has empowered lives of over 11,000 individuals in various parts of the country. The Chief Guest for the event was Dr. Paula Bulancea, the Deputy Country Representative of UNICEF Sri Lanka and members of the senior management of John Keells and Gateway Language Centre were also in attendance.

The performances were judged by a panel of three distinguished personalities in the field of English Theatre – Ms. Sashi Mendis;Associate of the Trinity College London in Performance and a teacher of drama at Gateway College for nearly a decade and now has her own school of drama and Ms. Aroshie Jayasinghe; the head of Gateway School of Speech and Drama and is also the head of the local wing of LAMDA Examinations – Sri Lanka and Mr. Hans Billimoria; leading Theatre Producer, Director and actor and Director of the Grassrooted Trust which works on issues related to gender based and intimate partner violence in Sri Lanka.

The Galle branch, for the second consecutive year, walked away with the 1st place in the poetry category while the Matara branch became the runners up. The Batticaloa branch were the runners up and the Ampara branch became the winners in the drama category. A student from the Colombo branch bagged the best individual performance Award.