The 2025 recipient of the Leadership Excellence Award for Sri Lanka is Ananda Galappatti.

In Sri Lanka, community wisdom and digital ingenuity are reshaping how mental health care is delivered during times of crisis and recovery. For over three decades, Ananda Galappatti has turned collective action into systems of care.

He mobilised 70 organisations in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, co-founded MHPSS.net to share psychosocial knowledge globally, and launched a national Community of Practice to support coordinated emergency response following the 2019 attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic.

He developed digital tools such as the Be Prepared app and the Manshu game for social-emotional learning, while helping to localise psychosocial training across Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Timor-Leste. At home, he works to digitise education and coordinate national mental health reform.

For decades of leadership rooted in dignity, community, and equity, Ananda Galappatti exemplifies meaningful impact and innovation in mental health care.

Congratulations to Ananda Galappatti.