In July 2021, forty-five Sri Lankan community organizations came together to make an appeal to the Australian Prime Minister and the Commonwealth Government, requesting to donate AZ vaccine doses to Sri Lanka. At this time, Sri Lanka had a severe shortage of those vaccines to administer as second dose to many Sri Lankans who had received their first dose. We are quite happy that, most of the Sri Lankan community organisations stood under a single umbrella and created a space to help Sri Lanka in this hour of need.

 

A letter of appeal from the forty-five organisations was sent to the Hon. Prime Minister which was supported by an online appeal that was signed by more than 12,000 signatories.

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Although the requested 500,000 vaccine doses were not donated immediately, we believe that this strong request from a group of community organisations created a positive impact on the Commonwealth Government's ongoing support to Sri Lanka, particularly in protecting its citizens and frontline workers from COVID-19 and increasing its capacity to deal with future pandemics. 

(Please refer the response from the office of Prime Minister)