The Departments of Psychiatry of Canada’s University of Toronto and Sri Lanka’s University of Kelaniya have set in motion a school-based programme to build character strengths and virtues By Kumudini Hettiarachchi It is a windy, rainy evening at Mayura Place, adjacent to the Havelock City Mall in Colombo 6. The evening rush hour is on, and [...]
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The Departments of Psychiatry of Canada’s University of Toronto and Sri Lanka’s University of Kelaniya have set in motion a school-based programme to build character strengths and virtues
It is a windy, rainy evening at Mayura Place, adjacent to the Havelock City Mall in Colombo 6. The evening rush hour is on, and we arrive at the kovil just as the poojas begin.
While the religious activity is on the ground floor, we move to a large hall on the first-floor at the rear of the building as parents walk in and the organisers put up simple posters about a vital activity.
This is a small focused group discussion with parents to introduce the ‘LEAPS’ – ‘Leadership, Empathy, Altruism, Personal Growth and Social Responsibility’ – Programme to them.
The focused group discussion with parents at the kovil down Mayura Place, Colombo 6. From left (standing): LEAPS Project Manager Sivunadipathige Sumanasiri & Clinical Psychologist Afra Jameel; (sitting) Research Associate Waruni Rajapakse explaining the project. Pix by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
The programme envisions building character strengths such as courage, humanity, temperance and transcendence virtues among their children.
It has already been rolled out in 20 schools in the Gampaha District in Sinhala among children in the 12-14 age group, yielding positive outcomes, and now the hope is to do so across the country.
The idea for LEAPS had come about with all the issues children, particularly adolescents, are grappling with and the inability to face challenges that life throws at them, the Sunday Times understands.
‘Building character strengths and virtues in post-conflict Sri Lanka: A school-based programme for youth’ is a collaboration between the Departments of Psychiatry of Canada’s University of Toronto and Sri Lanka’s University of Kelaniya. The initial grant for the implementation of the LEAPS Programme was from the Templeton World Charity Foundation based in the Bahamas. Based on the success of the initial intervention, the Foundation has extended a further grant to upscale the intervention involving parents and children in the three districts of Colombo, Galle and Jaffna. As such, the programme is ongoing.
The livewires behind the LEAPS Programme are Prof. Arun Ravindran of the University of Toronto and Prof. Shehan Williams and Prof. Miyuru Chandradasa of the University of Kelaniya.
Explaining the reasoning behind the implementation of the LEAPS Programme, Prof. Williams says frequent socio-political conflicts in the past decades have adversely affected the well-being of youth in Sri Lanka. There is a need to support youth development, mitigate past trauma and promote social harmony.
“School-based interventions to improve character development, emotional regulation and tolerance have good evidence and may benefit adolescents in Sri Lanka,” he said.
Thus, the programme modules were developed by a child and adolescent psychiatrist with the support of mental health and educational experts. The first interactive module, containing various cultural activities and questions, had been pre-tested among Grade 8 students (12-14 years) and teachers of two schools in the Gampaha District.
Delving into ‘character’, Prof. Williams says that it is defined as the unique moral and mental qualities of individuals that shape their thoughts, feelings and actions. It includes character strengths or traits that can be trained to positively enhance personal development. This is in line with tenets of positive psychology that focus on the optimistic aspects of human life and strengths rather than deficits.
The Values in Action Institute on Character (VIA), the Sunday Times learns, have classified six virtues and 24 character strengths. Character strengths such as perseverance, self-regulation, prudence and social intelligence are associated with positive teacher-rated classroom conduct and later academic achievements. The character strengths of hope, humour, zest and kindness are also correlated with well-being in adults. Strengths such as judgement, kindness and creativity, meanwhile, can also be protective against symptoms of depression and self-harm.
The research team went on to culturally adapt an internationally used character strength assessment instrument for Sri Lankan schoolchildren, and Prof. Williams says this intervention is a web-based educational tool modelled on globally accepted character strengths and virtues delivered as 10 modules.
Facilitated by teachers, 1,974 children in 20 schools in Gampaha took part in 2023, with the improvement in character strengths and virtues being systematically assessed. It also included a control group who were later offered the intervention.
“The qualitative feedback has been very positive, with teachers and student participants finding the intervention modules relevant and useful,” he said, explaining that now Provincial Education Departments and the National Institute of Education (NIE) are keen to roll it out as part of the national curriculum.
The modules have been translated and adapted to Tamil as well and thus are available in all three languages – Sinhala, Tamil and English.
Looking at the schoolchildren who took part in LEAPS in the Gampaha District, Prof. Williams says the ‘intervention’ group included 542 boys (51.8%) and 504 girls (48.2%) and the ‘control’ group 437 boys (47.1%) and 491 girls (52.9%). The average completion of both pre- and post-tests of all 10 modules was above 65% in the intervention group and above 80% in the control group.
“In both groups, the overall mean score for character strength demonstrated improvement at the post-test in comparison to the pre-test. Notably, the intervention group exhibited a significantly higher level of improvement,” he pointed out.
The pilot study in Gampaha had also resulted in the publication of the peer-reviewed research article ‘Acceptability of a web-based character strengths module for early adolescent schoolchildren’ in the Journal of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, in 2023.
Meanwhile, the study protocol titled ‘Building character strengths and virtues in Sri Lanka: a cluster randomised pre-post evaluation of a school-based intervention’ has been published in BMC Public Health, an open access peer-reviewed journal, this year. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12889-025-25752-z)
The certificate issued on completion
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