The Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka successfully participated at the recently held UN Women's Guild Bazaar, which brought together national and restaurant stalls from around 70 Permanent Missions in Geneva.

Under the leadership of Mrs. Jayatilleka as head of the Permanent Mission’s Seva Vanitha Unit, the Mission organized a national stall and a restaurant stall, both of which were very popular with visitors to the Bazaar.

The national stall of Sri Lanka offered Sri Lankan tea and tea gift items, wooden educational toys and soft toys.  As always, Sri Lanka tea proved to be the most popular item, with the 'Five Fine Teas' item comprising of the five regional teas of Sri Lanka and the 'Connoisseur' pack of tea bags from the Sri Lanka Tea Board, and the Earl Grey and Loolecondera tea in decorative tins from Mlesna, being sold within the first few hours of the Bazaar.  Many visitors who arrived later in the day and who came specifically to the Sri Lanka stall for tea were disappointed to discover that their favourite tea was sold out. However, many of those customers also showed an interest in the new items the stall offered this year from Mlesna, such as the wide variety of herbal and flavoured teas, and the ceramic tea items in the form of painted elephants, tea pots and mugs, all of which came with small packets of fine quality tea.

The wooden toys also sold out quickly, as parents bought these colourful and educational toys for their young children.  In particular, counting and alphabetical puzzles in the form of elephants and other animals were very popular.  In addition, the vibrant handloom soft toys provided by Barefoot were also in big demand, as many people bought these as gifts.

The Sri Lanka restaurant stall also performed extremely well, providing a wide range of traditional Sri Lankan short eats, as well as the traditional Sri Lankan plate of rice with a variety of curries.   Customers frequented the stall from morning, when staff completely sold out the pastries and cakes which were offered to early visitors, till late afternoon, when the Sri Lankan lunch plate also sold out within a few hours. 

Contributions made to the UN Women's Guild Fund as a result of the successful holding of UNWG Bazaar 2008, will be used to fund deserving charitable projects in the various UN Member countries. This year, the Sri Lankan Mission submitted two charities for consideration, whose objective is focused on children.