05/08/2026
Gone but Not Forgotten
We write today with deepest sadness to announce the passing of Dr Bisowela Senaka Gunasekara, our former Board Member of both Arthacharya and Arthavida. Fondly known as Bisowela or Biso, he was 80 and had been unwell for some time.
Born and brought up in a backward village in Kegalle, and having completed his A Levels, Bisowela joined the People’s Bank as a member of its clerical staff. Later, he was promoted to a junior executive position and served at the bank for a few more years before being promoted to a managerial role.
During this period, Biso developed a close understanding of the Sarvodaya Movement and assisted its programmes for the poor in Kegalle as a volunteer. Recognising the effectiveness of Sarvodaya’s participatory action, he was instrumental in introducing a small-scale savings-and-credit programme in the Kegalle area, using his banking experience. The term microfinance had not yet been coined at this time in the seventies. Sarvodaya already had some rural savings and credit programmes in villages in Anuradhapura, but it was the programme initiated by Bisowela in Kegalle that took root and subsequently developed into a widely spread savings and credit programme covering almost all districts in Sri Lanka.
In the late eighties, Dr Ariyaratne took the initiative to establish the Sarvodaya SEEDS programme, with Bisowela as the driving force, at a time when people with experience in this type of micro-banking were scarce. At the invitation of Dr Ariyaratne, Bisowela resigned from his bank job, which offered him high job security and potentially high perks, and joined the Sarvodaya SEEDS.
However, several years later, he left SEEDS and joined the newly established Sewa Finance, where he played a similar role in establishing its network, particularly in the North and East. After several years, he left Sewa Finance to join Berendina, yet another organisation in the same field. By this time, the term microfinance had been introduced by leading practitioners, particularly from Bangladesh and Latin America, following the Microcredit Summit in New York.
A few years later, Bisowela returned to the banking sector by accepting the Chairman of Seylan Bank's offer to head its Merchant Bank. After a brief stint with Seylan in Colombo and Kurunegala, he joined Arthacharya, which later separated its microfinance programme and established Arthavida.
Until his health deteriorated, Bisowela worked for us as a full-time adviser. Bisowela’s voluntary contribution to Arthacharya during its formative stages, when it established its microfinance programme nearly thirty-five years ago, speaks volumes. We salute this extremely modest and low-key figure, who has never sought publicity or glory, yet has been one of microfinance’s pioneers in Sri Lanka.
May he attain the supreme bliss of Nibbana.
