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OUR STAFF TEAM, WORK &
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
The RTP is very fortunate to have a group of dedicated staff and their supporting personnel at our projects. Due to our ambitious and rapidly expanding work programme and project portfolio we have expanded simply from one staff member to 6 full time project staff and their supporting team of an (01) assistant and three (3) tree nursery workers based at the Dickwella Lace centre and Trees for Life conservation project respectively. |
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CEO/ Founder Director
Charmarie Maalge – B Comm (special), MBA, MCIM. MSLIM |
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 Charmarie has started her career as an entrepreneur setting up and managing a handicrafts project, has been an active member of the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Sri Lanka. She has then moved to the development field spending a significant time in rural Sri Lanka with over 10 years of work experience with bilateral & multilateral development agencies (USAID/ IFAD/ UNDP) as marketing, business development consultant/advisor and a gender specialist. She has worked in private sector enterprise development, agribusiness development, micro credit, international marketing, institutional development, capacity building & empowerment, technology transfers, advocacy group formation, policy & regulatory reform and gender & women in development. Charmarie has been formally with the Sri Lanka Tourist Board as Director - UK, Director- Research and International Affairs and Director- Marketing.
She is also founder Director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership Sri Lanka. Her interests are travelling, cooking, pets and painting.
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Greening Sri Lanka Hotels Manager
Saliya Jayasekera – BSc Hons. M.Sc (Sweden) SLEA, AMIESL |
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Saliya’s speciality is power generation and utilization. He has over 5 years experience in the power sector including sizing and installation of the first grid connected wood fired power station in Sri Lanka. He has worked in Malaysia designing boilers, heat exchangers and heat recovery steam generators. His experience in hotel sector is conducting preliminary and detail energy audits and recommending solutions for efficient energy utilization. He has conducted various assignments, such as John Keels Group of Hotels Maldivian Resorts and the biggest ice cream and soft drinks plant in Sri Lanka - Ceylon Cold Stores. In addition, his work also extents to the Sri Lanka garment industry where he has delivered assignments to recovering inefficiencies in thermal and electrical energy systems. RTP is very happy to have Saliya to manage the Greening Sri Lanka Hotels Project and has no doubt that his expertise will be a tremendous contribution to the participating hotels. Saliya likes peace and quite environments. |
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LINC Project Manager
Sujith Yamasignhe - BA (Hons), DPR |
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 Sujith has had 3 years executive experience in Public Relations Management, 3 years experience in community development & 5 years experience in the private sector before joining the RTP in 2007. He has particular interest in the areas of coordinating & conducting training, managing events, development, conceptualising & designing promotional materials, working with media, conducting research in sociological approach. His key strengths are in community development work mobilising local communities and empowering them with awareness and training. He works very closely with the beach operator community in Beruwela. He is married and has two children. |
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Trees for Life Project Manager
Sampath Gunasinghe |
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 Sampath is a member the Wildlife Conservation Society Galle and he is currently the secretary of the society. He has been involved in many conservational related initiatives especially conducting a large number of educational programmes for school children and in conducting biodiversity research. His speciality is dragon flies and he has published papers on dragonfly identification and conservation. Sampath has been working with the RTP from July 2007. He is currently studying for a Bsc degree in Natural Science at the Open University in Sri Lanka. |
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Dickwella Lace Centre - Lace Instructor
Susila Rajapaksha |
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 Susila learned lace making in 1968 and was one of the students of the first batch of young women to be trained in lace making by the Department of Small Industries in Batheegama Dickwella, where our lace centre too is located. We found Susila after so much of searching in Sep 2007. Since then she has taken over the task of managing the training and retail outlet activities of the centre. Susila is very passionate about lace making. She says “I was the best student in the lace making class and I feel that I am the one who got the best out of the class. I can do tatting, bobbin and crochet lace and continued this as a profession till I retired. It is a bit difficult for me now because of my age, but I like to make lace and do new designs, I am very happy to teach these skill to young girls who are interested through the Dickwella Lace Centre”. Susila has two sons who are aged 23 & 24 . |
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RTP Intern
Channa Bopage - BSc Hons. Town & Country Planning |
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Channa completed his Bachelors degree in 2009 May at the University of Moratuwa and joined the RTP as an intern to be trained as the Programmes Coordinator with a high recommendation of the University of Colombo Department of Economics Tourism Section. He has completed his dissertation in Eco Tourism. Channa is interested in environmental management and his hobbies are travelling and exploring rural Sri Lanka. Channa has hopes to work with the RTP and contribute towards environmental management aspects of the programme. |
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VOLUNTEERS
LINC Project |
| Sue Mautner |
 Sue’s first entry into the travel industry was in a tourism research and marketing company, which included acting as the Seychelles Tourist Office and Hong Kong Travel Association before they had their own offices in the UK and Europe. 29 years at Kuoni UK, from when it had less than 50 staff and then grew to over 400. From PR and Sales, to head of marketing. Later on she was given the special opportunity to create and set up a direct sell tour operator, which became The Travel Collection. In 2005, Sue wanted to spend more time traveling and Leaving Kuoni, she was looking for volunteer work in countries as she says “which had specially touched my heart across the years”.
Sue is helping us to implement the LINC project in Beruwela and, trained Sujith our project manager. Sue’s time of one month (February 2007) in Sri Lanka for this project is 100% voluntarily without any fees and she continue to give us guidance and valuable advice regularly..
Sue Says “Over the 20 years during which I have been involved with Sri Lanka, our business dealings have led to increasing success for both Kuoni UK and The Travel Collection: so I feel I would now like to put something back, particularly when times are hard. Also, I have enjoyed many wonderful personal holidays on the island. Above all, I feel privileged to have got to know many amazing people in Sri Lanka whom I count as true friends. I am really honoured to have been asked to volunteer and will do everything I can to ensure it is successful”. |
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| Trees for Life Project |
| Six volunteers in batches of two have visited the Trees for Life project in 2007, 2008 & 2009 and have initially helped set up the nursery and have also conducted marketing promotional activities. Whilst the fist two volunteers engaged in setting up the physical infrastructure of the nursery including building nursery sheds, others followed up the marketing and promotional activities of hotels and including Tress for Life as a sustainable excursion in ground handling agent’s itineraries for their customers. |
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Fist Choice Holidays and Flights UK
Ian McCaughan & Phil Jones |
| Ian, Branch Manger of a busy high street travel agency and Phil, Senior Technical Project Manager, IT department visited Sri Lanka on 8th of March 2007 to participate and contribute to a very rewarding two weeks tsunami recovery exercise. They will help develop and launch our second ‘Trees for Life’ tree nursery located in the scenic Rain Forest reservoir in Hiyare. |
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Fist Choice Holidays and Flights UK
Lisa Holman & Pauline Muldowney |
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Lisa Holman, Product Manager for Dominican Republic and Barbados and Pauline Muldowney, Product Development Manager Airline & Innovation arrived in Sri Lanka and carried out their volunteers assignment from 27th March to 11th April 2008. Their main task was to establish marketing links with Hotels, tourists and other tourism related industry stakeholders such as Tour Operators & Guides introducing the environment restoration programme. Lisa and Pauline developed guidelines for ground handling agents and checklists for Trees for Life manager and staff for handling customers. |
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TUI Travel Plc
Donna Russell & Richard Macklin |
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Donna Russell, Product Manager/ TUI Travel Plc and Richard Macklin, Product Development Manager / TUI Travel Plc visited Sri Lanka on a two week volunteer assignment under the TUI ‘Project Discovery’ scheme on the 8th June 2009 to work with the Trees for Life marketing and promotional activities. After a brief familiarisation visit at the project., Donna and Richard worked with the Tree Project Manger and the Ground handling agent for TUI Travel Plc, Aitken Spence Travels and a several other agents to educate and establish marketing linkages for tourist excursions. |
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