Kingsley C. Dassanaike

Dassanaike was born in Moratuwa, Ceylon on 19 June 1914. He began Scouting as a Cub Scout at 15th Colombo at Mount Lavinia on 19 June 1919, under Charles P. Dharmakirti.D.C.O.T. Ameresekere (1969), Fifty Years in Scout Service. Sri Lanka Scout Association. p. 1 During the course of his Scouting career he worked to promote Scouting for the deaf and blind alongside Edmund Godfrey-Faussett, Charles Dymoke Green Jr., E. W. Kannangara, and Yorihiro Matsudaira, who would later found the Nippon Agoonoree based on their work together.D.C.O.T. Ameresekere (1969), Fifty Years in Scout Service. Sri Lanka Scout Association. p. 1 He participated and read papers at International Scout Conferences on the subject of disabled Scouting in New Delhi and Manila, visited Thailand, Kenya and Uganda to promote the subject, and had his greatest success in Hong Kong.[http://www.scout.org.hk/en/department/programme/00002786.html scout.org][http://www.scout.org.hk/ccc2011/download/MilestonesofWorldScouting.pdf scout.org] At the 1947 6th World Scout Jamboree in France, he was in charge of the British Contingent of Handicapped Scouts.D.C.O.T. Ameresekere (1969), Fifty Years in Scout Service. Sri Lanka Scout Association. p. 1 He was attached to Third Handicapped Group in Birmingham, while serving at the Boy Scouts International Bureau in London, and by the time of the 1957 9th World Scout Jamboree at Sutton Park, he served in a Special Committee attached to the International Advisory Bureau for Handicapped Scouts.Pg. No 105 of the Sri Lanka Scout Association Golden Jubilee Souvenir 1962 Upon his return to Sri Lanka, he assisted in revising "Scouting for Boys" in the Sinhala language.

In 1947, Dassanaike, principal of the school for the blind at Ratmalana,https://www.freunde-der-dzb.de/files/papers_topic_6_weerawardhana.doc {{Dead link|date=February 2022}} introduced a Sinhala Braille code influenced by the English Braille code.Dassanaike K.C., (1960) Sinhala Braille kramaya.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2943058?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents Bibliography] UNESCO, 1956. xxvii, 139 p. (UNESCO ... (1956), 97-104. UNESCO international seminar on public ...... DASSENAIKE, KINGSLEY C. In 1952, a universally accepted Braille system was introduced by UNESCO.[http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001478/147828eb.pdf UNESCO/MC/Conf.9/10 Paris, 8 December 1950 "Interim Memorandum on Uniform Braille for India and South East Asia, with due reference to its Co-ordinated Relationship to the Braille of Other Areas" p. 2/3 section "Ceylon"]UNESCO, 1953, pp 27–28 Further he was vice-president of the World Council for the Welfare of the Blind.{{Cite web | url=https://nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/bm/Abm/bm1958/BrailleMonitorApril1958.html |title = Braille Monitor, April, 1958}}

In 1972, he was awarded the 76th Bronze Wolf, the only distinction of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, awarded at the 24th World Scout Conference in Nairobi, Kenya by the World Scout Committee for exceptional services to world Scouting,Dr. László Nagy, 250 Million Scouts, The World Scout Foundation and Dartnell Publishers, 1985 Pg. 221{{Cite web |url=https://www.scout.org/BronzeWolfAward/list |title=Official List of Bronze Wolf Awardees, scout.org |access-date=2016-12-04 |archive-date=2020-11-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201129053624/https://www.scout.org/BronzeWolfAward/List |url-status=dead }} the only Sri Lankan thus awarded to date.

{{Reflist}}

{{Portal bar|Scouting}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dassanaike, Kingsley C.}}

Category:1914 births

Category:Year of death missing

Category:Recipients of the Bronze Wolf Award

Category:Scouting and Guiding in Sri Lanka