Author: admin

Approximately 20 percent of youth in Los Angeles suffer from poverty, which interferes with their ability to purchase essential school supplies, and thus access a quality education. In addition, the pandemic has created further disruption for students as classes temporarily halted, interrupting learning. To help mitigate these issues, SLYO and Project POH have partnered with Migalay’s Tamales restaurant and Yasel Puig’s Wild Horse Foundation to create the Operation Rise above initiative. The purpose of the initiative was to provide essential school supplies such as pens, backpacks, pencils, crayons, and colored pencils to underprivileged youth residing in the San Fernando Valley district. The event was hosted at Migalay’s Tamales Mexican restaurant on Saturday, October 3rd 2020 and was facilitated successfully with the help of many enthusiastic volunteers. Overall, school supplies were given to approximately 700 school-aged youth. SLYO and Project POH were grateful for the funds and essential school supplies provided by their sponsors: TJ Maxx Westlake Village, Kinecta Federal Credit Union, Sri Lanka Foundation, Team Rugby LA, the Go-Fund me donations and Facebook donations. As a result of the donations, SLYO was able to purchase 700 backpacks with school supplies to provide to youth and families in need. The committee was also able to provide these individuals with free packaged meat sponsored by Yasel Puig’s Wild Horse Foundation. SLYO and Project POH would like to extend a special thank you to all the people that donated funds or supplies to make this event possible. Overall, Operations Rise Above, was able to help children ranging from Kindergarten to High School obtain important school supplies to help them get through the school year.

What an amazing weekend it was at the I AM KING event, for our Los Angeles chapter who partnered with Wild Horse Children’s Foundation @wildhorsefdn to award 10 students, all aspiring to become future Doctors from the city of Compton, each with a $5,000 scholarship.
Our very own Dr. Lihini Weerasinghe, and our LA chapter volunteer coordinator – Fathima Rauff, attended the event, and awarded the well deserving youth with their scholarships, and formal acceptance into the Medical Pathway to Success mentoring program which will be held December 6, 2020.

We are proud to present SLYO Leadership Mentoring Program – Medical Pathways to Success .

SLYO’s Leadership Mentoring program is a new project that aims to connect underserved populations with reliable and experienced mentors to aid them in achieving their long-term goals. The Medical Pathways Mentorship committee is a team composed of multiple medical professionals who are committed to supporting the selected pre-med students through pursuing their careers in the medical field. These mentors will be supporting and advising these students not only throughout the process of applying to their desired medical programs, but also continuing into their medical education. Our goal is to prepare these future medical professionals for success in the medical field career of their choice with personalized advice to help them overcome whatever unique challenges they face during their education. This program offers a full-service email contact to a practicing physician that will be available to the mentees at any point during their medical journeys. We will also be hosting group meetings every other month to keep communication open and plan the next steps of the process in each student’s medical journey. As this is a new program, we are open to improving and altering things as we move along and get to know each student, but we are all fully committed to doing what is best for our students in helping them reach their future goals as successful medical professionals!

The success of the Adopt a Family event on December 19th 2020 was a reflection of the generous contribution from our sponsors. The aim of our event was to provide beneficial items and ease the financial stress of low-income families in the cities of San Fernando Valley, Oxnard and Long Beach, CA during the holidays. With the generous donation from our sponsors to SLYO, we were able to participate in the Adopt a Family project, purchase hygiene products for twelve families from Target such as soap, conditioner, shampoo, toothpaste, and toothbrushes. We also used your donation to purchase two Christmas trees for these families.
SLYO is highly grateful for your sponsorship. Without your help this project would not have been possible. Thank you again for your generosity and we look forward to continuing our partnership with you.

SLYO 1st event in the Community.

(SLYO), a 501(c) non-profit organization dedicated to empowering youth and molding them into the leaders of tomorrow, put together the International Women’s Day Conference that took place on March 5th, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA. The conference was intended to embolden young women and equip them with the knowledge and resources to overcome and navigate challenging life circumstances. The event was sponsored by longtime sponsors, Kinecta Federal Credit Union. SLYO partnered with the Lighthouse Organization to feature a fashion show celebrating domestic violence survivors and invited some women to share their inspirational stories. Prominent community members attended the conference as speakers including Senator Vanessa Delgado who spoke on finding and pursuing your passion, Lully Noble and Loria Frometa from Kinecta Federal Credit Union spoke on the importance of financial literacy, Sherine Zaza gave a motivational and inspirational speech, and the conference closed with a yoga session from Manuri Ranasinghe where she taught useful everyday yoga poses. A variety of female entrepreneurs and small business owners from baked goods(Bakedwithkat) to candles(Shopavalit), books(Milestorow, Good Day Sri Lanka, Mindset Service), and jewelry(ProKreatebyKara, Alejandra Garcia Jewelry Collection) were highlighted, and given the opportunity to advertise and sell their products at the conference. We believe this conference had a strong impact on empowering women in the community to be bold, brave, and #BreakTheBias #ktla Photo Credit: @Tom BaretteVideo Credit: @Eshan De Silva

(SLYO), a 501(c) non-profit organization dedicated to empowering youth and molding them into the leaders of tomorrow, put together the International Women’s Day Conference that took place on March 5th, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA. The conference was intended to embolden young women and equip them with the knowledge and resources to overcome and navigate challenging life circumstances. The event was sponsored by longtime sponsors, Kinecta Federal Credit Union. SLYO partnered with the Lighthouse Organization to feature a fashion show celebrating domestic violence survivors and invited some women to share their inspirational stories. Prominent community members attended the conference as speakers including Senator Vanessa Delgado who spoke on finding and pursuing your passion, Lully Noble and Loria Frometa from Kinecta Federal Credit Union spoke on the importance of financial literacy, Sherine Zaza gave a motivational and inspirational speech, and the conference closed with a yoga session from Manuri Ranasinghe where she taught useful everyday yoga poses. A variety of female entrepreneurs and small business owners from baked goods(Bakedwithkat) to candles(Shopavalit), books(Milestorow, Good Day Sri Lanka, Mindset Service), and jewelry(ProKreatebyKara, Alejandra Garcia Jewelry Collection) were highlighted, and given the opportunity to advertise and sell their products at the conference. We believe this conference had a strong impact on empowering women in the community to be bold, brave, and #BreakTheBias #ktla Photo Credit: @Tom BaretteVideo Credit: @Eshan De Silva