ROSE SENANAYAKE

Rosy Senanayake

Bernadine Rose Senanayake nee Ramanayake (Rosy Senanayake) is a Sri Lankan politician, activist and beauty queen. At present she is the Leader of the Opposition in Western Provincial Council and United National Party Chief Organiser for the Colombo West Electorate. She has served as the Sri Lankan High Commissioner for malaysia and as a Goodwill Ambasador for the United Nations Population Fund. She is seen as the foremost woman politician in the island and has a substantial personal following among the common man.

Rosy Senanayake was the winner in the first Mrs World competition in 1985. She is also a former Miss Asia Pacific International 1981 and competed as Miss Sri Lanka in Miss World 1980.

Her professional life has been devoted to promoting Sri Lanka, and particularly Sri Lankan trade, to the world. She promotes the rights of women and adolescents in her country, and as a United Nations Population Fund Goodwill Ambassador she has, through the National Youth Services Council, promoted reproductive health services for young people and for migrant women workers in Sri Lanka's Free Trade Zone. She has worked with the private sector to provide reproductive health services to employees of private companies in Sri Lanka, and recently starred in a film about reproductive health. Through her popular daytime television program she has become an icon for women's causes.

In 1998 she was appointed as a United Nations Population Fund Goodwill Ambassador. Rosy Senanayake was appointed as Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Malaysia in 2002, which she held until 2004.

She married Athula Senanayake, an entrepreneur who is the son of Stanley Senanayake, a former Inspector General of Police and Maya Senanayake the daughter of SLFP MP P. de. S. Kularatne. The marriage has produced three children Kanishka, Thisakya and Radhya.