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Contributions by JHC OBA, UK

Good afternoon and welcome to you all.

am privileged to have been requested by the president and the present committee
I to say a few words About the contributions by OBA UK since inception. We
are all grateful to our college for providing a high standard of education, sports and
most importantly a life full of moral values from our Dedicated teachers. Hence, some
grateful old students of JHC, Late Mr.T.S.Perinpanathan, Mr.K Sevel, late Mr.S
Uthayalingam, Mr.R Suresh , Mr T Ganeswaran and some others were instrumental
in organising the OBA UK in 1987. That was the time, the college was a refugee camp
with 40000 People for about 20 days with the occupation of Jaffna by the Indian
army. The OBA was not very active Till it was revived in 1990 by the same organisers.
The OBA UK successfully celebrated the centenary of the Lola Jones hall in south
London 1991.

That was a difficult task as only few old boys were in Up and most Were students or
struggling to get jobs?, or were refugees .We are thankful to them for organising
the OBA which grew gradually to a larger organisation with the influx of more old Dr. M Vetpillai
students entering UK With the escalation of the war in north. They all understood Past President
the need to help our college at the time of Need. If one looks into the history of OBA JHC (OBA)UK
JHC, the OBA Jaffna collected funds even in 1940,46,51 60 by organising carnivals
exhibitions Even, prior to this in 1922,Mr Samaritan Singe went to Malaysia to
collect Funds to expand the buildings at JHC.

The OBA UK too, under the guidance of various presidents and patrons and the
hardworking committee members , collected funds by organising annual cultural In 2010 the OBA has
paid £25,000 for the
evenings, Kalaiyarasi and Christmas dinner and dance .These events were always well purchase of the land
attended and provided funds to help our college. and the house next to
Cumaraswamy Hall.
In addition, some of our grateful old boys have donated money to swell our funds.
In the initial stages, when the war was going on in North ,even the basic things were
not available or scarce, the OBA realised the need for helping the poor students who
were struggling for the basic needs of books, pen and pencil ,school furniture etc
.Hence, the programme of granting scholarships to the needy students were initiated
with great success in 1992 by my committee and expanded by Dr.Jothilingam and
still continued to benefit the students In October 1995, the students were
displaced and the college was not functioning. Our help was needed During these
difficult periods and OBA UK did all what it could? In 2000,the then president
Mr.Ganeswaran and the committee organised an International convention of OBAs
around the world to coincide with the millennium .

Mr.Srikumaran, the principal was invited and honoured during this period. He
gave us an insight into the hard life at the school with the poor facilities and lack
of basic needs for the students and teachers. It was a successful event and provided a
platform to discuss the needs of the school and planning for the future. This, being an
international conference involving other OBAs , it was decided to allocate different

Kalaiyarasi 2012 20