Chinese company offers scholarship to Sri Lankan school

Renovation work and donations to a school near Sri Lanka's historic Fa-Hien caves were carried out by a top Chinese company, an official said on Wednesday.

China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), which is currently building the first coal power plant in Sri Lanka valued at 1.2 billion US dollars, donated this week several items to a local school.

The company donated library books, computers, water filters and solar-powered lamps to the Yatagampitiya Primary School. A dozen scholarships were also donated to promising students in the school, a CMEC spokesman told Xinhua. The scholarship is a long standing tradition that is offered every year to encourage students to make greater efforts to study.

Company officials were greeted by teachers and parents of the school who cordially accepted their donations.

CMEC had also constructed a building for the school.

Locally known as the "Pahiyangala" caves they were inhabited by prehistoric cave men some 37,000 years ago. This cave is supposed to be the largest natural rock in Asia and this is also known to be the most ancient pre-historic human settlement in Asia.

The name of the cave is derived from the name of the Chinese Mahayana Buddhist priest "Fa- Hsien" who visited the cave in the fifth century. The Chinese scholar was a tireless wanderer in strange lands.

The area is currently urbanized and is considered a key site linking Sri Lankan and Chinese heritage. In the 1980's the Chinese government constructed a village near the Fa-Hsien caves for Sri Lankan nationals.