Harbingers’ mentor Tharushi Weerasinghe wins prestigious journalism award in Sri Lanka

By Kimberly Yanez

Harbingers’ Magazine mentor Tharushi Weerasinghe has been named Feature Writer of the Year at the Journalism Awards for Excellence in Sri Lanka. The award, presented in January by the Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Press Institute, recognises her work published in The Sunday Times, Sri Lanka in 2023.

Weerasinghe received the prestigious Upali Wijewardene Feature Writer of the Year award for the second consecutive year, making her one of the youngest journalists in Sri Lanka to achieve this distinction.

Named after the founder of Upali Newspapers Ltd., the award honours journalists whose insightful, well-researched writing enhances public understanding of complex issues. It celebrates compelling storytelling, journalistic integrity, and excellence in language at a national level.

At the previous edition of the Journalism Awards for Excellence, Weerasinghe won both Feature Writer of the Year and Best Young Reporter of the Year for her coverage during the economic crisis and protests in 2022 Sri Lanka. As a result of the latter, she was also named Sri Lanka’s Lakshman Kadirgamar Scholar of the Year.