Diners have changed since COVID; more conscious of preventive health, they value food & beverage with proven health benefits. Now more conscious than ever of ethics and sustainability, younger consumers especially demand and relish a truthful origin story where provenance links taste, goodness and kindness. That means good, safe, sustainably and ethically grown ingredients. It’s not only good Tea that offers that powerful combination, there’s also Ceylon Cinnamon and more. That’s where the grower comes into the picture.

Growers – mostly artisans, farmers – are key to the existence of every nation. Here’s why. Providing nutrition, delivering revenue, sustaining rural economies, they underpin food security in this increasingly fractured world. That’s not all – growers do more – they are stewards of soil, biodiversity, and livelihoods. These are weighty responsibilities. Beyond nutrition, food security, rural economy, biodiversity and livelihoods, they are the critical context for green growth, eco-tourism, key to containing unsustainable urban migration and securing the future of every economy with genuinely sustainable green economic growth.

Yet in a world that is indifferent to the challenges faced by people who produce their food, where countries often spend more on missiles than education, cut critical development aid and healthcare budgets to fund their militaries, the role of the grower is dangerously devalued. Compromising a segment of our community that is so important for well being, security, economy and future generations, delivers yet another existential crisis.

We grow tea and cinnamon. Most brands trade both, because it is vastly less costly and complicated than growing. For years responsible agriculture has been unprofitable, with harsh climate, changing lifestyles and predatory marketplaces only deepening that crisis. Traders monopolise margins, earning an unfairly and disproportionate share of the price of most produce. Their emphasis on buying cheap to maximise profit disregards the interest of growers and consumers to an extent where true Cinnamon – the good one – is substituted by an inferior one – cheaper, yet toxic at certain levels. It is the same with tea, maximising profit at the expense of consumers with unethical methods like product reformulation to eliminate premium ingredients like Ceylon Tea or Ceylon Cinnamon and reduce cost without alerting consumers, multi-origin blending diluting origin for lower cost. All at the expense of growers.

Most growers have an abiding commitment to their produce. After all we care for our teas from sapling, in our nurseries to harvested and finished product – somewhat like the enduring love a parent has for a child. My father devoted his life to tea, a devotion that has only grown as our business has transitioned a generation. We honour a tradition of growing, sustainability and ethics that is often described as outdated and uneconomic. Abdicating those founding values of purity of origin, quality, goodness, packing at source for freshness, would unquestionably help us to recover the cost of our refusal to compromise. But you can’t harm the object of your devotion, so compromise is not an option.

As growers, our responsibility is to soils, biodiversity, to the lives of our workers and the wider community, to traditions that assure quality, conservative agricultural practices that make our produce sustainable, and kindness that makes it ethical. The decisions we make on our lands today will influence the lives of future generations, in the quality of soils they have to assure food security, in the biodiversity they have for clean air, water and climate resilience. That means looking to Nature for solutions – researching and developing climate adaptation, regenerative agricultural methods – while it is cheaper not to do either and opt for convention.

That was my plea to that august assembly of Chefs. Consider the role of the grower, the irrevocable link between good ingredients and responsible artisans, the harshness of the circumstances growers face, with pricing that rarely reflects value. Chefs carry the aspirations of artisans on every plate; a partnership between both for Quality, Integrity and Kindness could be a powerful proposition, delivering food of higher quality, more nutritious and a harvest of livelihoods adding to good taste. It wouldn’t cost much – good tea is one of the world’s most affordable luxuries. In tea and other produce, the justification for quality and ethics goes beyond the cost per serving that consumer consider in stores. Regenerative agricultural practices and ethical production deliver healthier, tastier produce – with good health and wellness, good taste outlasting the momentary, perceived benefit of discount. The vastly greater cost of discount driven agriculture manifests in degraded soils and everything Rachel Carson predicted in 1962.

For growers, biodiversity, nature, food safety, taste and the lives of consumers it would be transformation, a paradigm shift. For future generations, yet unborn, it would be the difference between a life of fulfillment and one of inconceivable hardship.

The cost? Less yet fair and proportionate margin for middlemen. The benefit? Unprecedented for people and nature.

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Kindness Day unfolded across Sri Lanka in a way that would have made my father smile. At Dilmah Head Office, dry ration packs were distributed to over 1,000 families. At Apeksha Hospital in Maharagama, our teams delivered nutritional supplement packs to children. On Wednesday afternoon, at the Mother Theresa Elders Home in Mattakkuliya, eighty-five elders shared evening snacks and dinner with our people, with songs and conversation filling the hours between. That evening, at the Suwa Arana Centre in Maharagama, children and their parents sat down together for dinner, hosted by our Dilmah Family.

In the MJF Foundation Centres, the day was alive with purpose. My family’s celebration started at our Centre for Children with Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Disorders in Rajagiriya, with a compelling presentation of the ability of people society considers disabled; the children and their parents marked the day joyfully. In Batticaloa, our team at MJF Centre East team served breakfast to the wonderful people and staff at the Little Sisters Elders Home. At Senthnery Tamil Vidyalayam in Vellaveli, a nutrition programme started, offering lunch to every student as part of a programme that will soon span 23 schools and over 2,500 students.

In our MJF Centre Moratuwa, students, their parents and staff engaged in mindfulness to ease mental stress, facilitated by the Peace Centre. At the Centre for the Handicapped in Kundasale, we met with individuals who will soon receive prosthetic limbs from the MJF Foundation. Across our East, West, Jaffna and CCCPDD centres, food packs were distributed, each sufficient for a family to eat balanced meals for 2 weeks.

On our Kahawatte Plantations workers and staff gathered at first light for a moment of reflection and prayer. This is how my father always celebrated special occasions – with generosity toward others. Kindness Day is the celebration of a birth, and the legacy that followed by the Grace of God. It was the perfect occasion to also share something deeply meaningful to us as a family.

On Kindness Day 2026, we announced a refreshed Vision and Mission for Dilmah — one that honours the past while setting the compass for the future. Before I share that, some context.

Kindness as defiance

My father could not afford an university education. People I mentioned that to often remarked that it saddened them, although I believe it was the opposite; what guided my father was not conventional business and its focus on profit, but his faith in God and the values his mother instilled in him. Principally the realization that the reason you make money is to give it away to people less fortunate than you are.

That is not charity or sentimentality; it is the foundation of a philosophy that defines our family business. My father’s devotion to tea, and his pursuit of kindness began in 1950, with a loan of Rs. 10,000 (less than US$50 at the time) and what most felt was an impossible dream — he wanted to create a genuinely ethical, producer-owned tea brand from a country still reeling from centuries of colonial exploitation. Four and a half centuries of colonisation had ravaged Sri Lanka’s wealth, and its self-determination.

Sri Lanka – then called Ceylon – gained political independence in 1948, yet it was anything but independent economically as its key exports and revenue streams were in the hands of the heirs to colonial power, transnational corporations that controlled the commodity chain, buying Ceylon Tea as raw material, blending and ‘adding value’ to extract profits far from the people who grew it.

My father spent thirty-five years battling that system before Dilmah reached its first customers in 1985. In those years he was neither slow nor patient; he was relentless in his defiance of a system of economic colonisation that his peers accepted as inevitable, which sadly persists to an extent even today. Fortunately he prevailed – armed solely with invincible faith, integrity, kindness and determination to achieve what he knew was right.

Dilmah was the first tea grower to market his own produce directly to consumers. As simple as it sounds — that was a revolution at the time. It returned value to the land and the people who worked it and ensured that quality was not sacrificed for margin. It also created the economic foundation for something my father believed in: sharing the benefits of success with those who need it most.

for People

This is where the MJF Charitable Foundation comes in, formalising my father’s belief in kindness as a principle of business and forming the heart of ours. My father committed a minimum 15% of our pretax profits to the humanitarian work of the Foundation — not only when times are good, but always. Alongside his principle of integrity in quality, that commitment is honoured without compromise. It is not a marketing effort in the guise of CSR, and since 2001, that philosophy has delivered over Rs. 9.6 billion (US$ 56 million at the prevailing rate each year), in social and environmental initiatives through the Foundation and through Dilmah Conservation.

The Foundation works across five interconnected themes: serving children with disability, where the focus is on ability through education, creativity and therapy; on education, delivering formal schooling, life skills and vocational training for less fortunate youth; supporting the welfare of tea and cinnamon communities, addressing nutrition and welfare across plantation populations; on dignified empowerment, fostering sustainable entrepreneurship that restores dignity alongside income; and healthcare, strengthening capacity in emergency care and the management of severe illness.

The reach is extraordinary. Nearly 673,000 beneficiaries across Sri Lanka — from Point Pedro in the far north to Weligama in the deep south, from Kalkudah on the eastern coast to Moratuwa in the western heartland. Twelve community centres spanning the breadth of the island. Programmes that include the Rainbow Centres for children and youth, MJF Kids programmes nurturing potential, the Curtiss Institute of Design Technology training young people in marketable skills, Women’s Development Programmes, Small Entrepreneur Programmes that support women and people with disabilities, People’s Markets that give communities economic agency, and the Good Heart Café in Moratuwa that turns social enterprise into daily practice.

In healthcare, the Foundation’s investment has been transformative — the construction of hospitals, the provision of essential medical equipment, the deployment of seven ambulances for emergency patient transport, and a cervical cancer screening programme for women over thirty-five. At Nawalapitiya District General Hospital alone, the impact extends to over 500,000 beneficiaries. On the plantations where our tea is grown — Kahawatte, Elpitiya, Talawakelle, Dunkeld — we provide nutrition programmes for children in community development centres and scholarships that open doors that would otherwise remain shut.

In Rajagiriya, the Centre for Children with Cerebral Palsy and other Developmental Disorders is a place of extraordinary compassion and determination, where children whom society too often overlooks are given the care, therapy and love they deserve. In Peliyagoda and Pahalalanda and Siyambalanduwa, young people are learning trades, building businesses, discovering their own capacity. In Colombo, the Early Intervention Clinic is reaching children at the most critical window of their development.

These are not just numbers; they are lives changed and the living expression of my father’s conviction that kindness is not charity but a part of being human.

for Nature

If the MJF Charitable Foundation is the heart of Dilmah, Dilmah Conservation is its conscience. Established in 2007, it works alongside the Foundation across four core pillars: biodiversity conservation and restoration, environmental education and awareness, climate resilience research and sustainability, and environmental advocacy.

The Endane Biodiversity Corridor is perhaps the most vivid expression of what Dilmah Conservation stands for. In the wet lowlands of Sri Lanka, two fragmented forest patches — Iharakanda and Walankanda — had been severed from one another, leaving wildlife isolated and ecosystems degraded. We are creating a forested corridor through our tea gardens there to reconnect them, converting forty hectares of degraded tea land into tropical lowland rainforest, establishing long-term monitoring plots, and planting over a hundred globally threatened species.

A new Memecylon species was discovered here — a plant that might otherwise have been lost forever, now protected in our threatened plant nursery and arboretum. The project received the BCCS Award in 2023 and has been supported by the Franklinia Foundation. It is a powerful demonstration that restoring land can help protect life, and that a tea company can be an instrument of ecological renewal.

At our Queensberry Estate in Nawalapitiya, the One Earth Climate Change Research Centre has supported over twenty climate studies and fourteen scientific publications since its founding in 2017. The tea industry is experiencing the impact of climate change — altered rainfall, shifting temperatures, evolving pest dynamics — and our research responds directly to those challenges.

Current projects include the conservation of Kudalu, a rare endemic plant; a bat conservation initiative that promotes bats as natural pest controllers in tea; and a leopard conservation project focused on coexistence, conflict mitigation, and habitat protection. In collaboration with the South Asian Nitrogen Hub, a globally significant study on nitrogen pollution was conducted here — science rooted in tea country, addressing challenges that extend far beyond it.

The One Earth Centre in Moratuwa, with its Urban Arboretum, Butterfly Garden and model Organic Garden, brings environmental education into the heart of urban life. In Kalkudah, our eastern centre supports environmental education, research for undergraduates and field visits for school students. The Greening Batticaloa initiative planted approximately one million cashew trees in the east, restoring degraded land and strengthening community resilience in post-conflict areas. It was a peacebuilding exercise, connecting the social and economic welfare of the people with our environmental objective.

Dilmah Conservation’s marine work is equally significant. It was our documentation of the Kayankerni Reef that contributed to its declaration as a protected marine sanctuary. In 2024, we formalised the “Life to Our Coral Reefs” project — a nature-based solution delivering environmental and socio-economic benefits. Beneath the Waves, our collaboration with Uva Wellassa University and the University of Colombo, studies new coral growth, while an upcoming Blue Carbon Project examines how Sri Lanka’s mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes store carbon and support climate resilience.

At Beddagana Wetland Park, part of the Colombo Wetland Complex, we are partnering with the Urban Development Authority to revitalise this urban ecosystem as a wetland education hub. At Udawalawe, our Elephant Knowledge Walk raises awareness of elephant behaviour and human-elephant coexistence — we have adopted four elephants and will extend support to seven within the year. Our beekeeping programmes support both pollination and sustainable livelihoods. Our amphibian conservation efforts focus on sensitive indicator species. And at the Dilmah Genesis Centre in Colombo, we drive change through dialogue, research and partnerships, translating science into action for a sustainable future.

Dilmah Conservation has published more than sixteen works to date, including Shyamala and the Sloth Bear by Professor Jody Miller — our first children’s conservation publication — Discovery: Flora of Ceylon, by Dr. Himesh Jayasinghe, a valuable contribution to the country’s botanical knowledge. Through Grey2Green, we are transforming degraded spaces into functional ecosystems. Through the Stronger Together initiative launched in 2023, we are working with partners across the tea industry to co-create better standards for biodiversity, agro-forestry, worker health and welfare — not top-down, but collaboratively.

Kindness abroad

My father’s philosophy of kindness was never confined to Sri Lanka. He believed that the act of sharing tea carried with it an obligation to the communities in which Dilmah is present — everywhere. This is why our partnerships abroad are not marketing exercises but genuine expressions of the values on which Dilmah was built.

In New Zealand, our partnership with Hospice New Zealand has endured since 1997 — nearly three decades of donating all the tea each hospice service could need, every year. Over eleven million tea bags have sparked conversation and comforted people in palliative care and their visitors. When Hospice New Zealand awarded Dilmah a gold medal in recognition of our contribution to the hospice movement in Aotearoa, it affirmed something deeply personal — that a cup of tea, offered with care, can comfort people in the most difficult moments of their lives. For those in the care of hospice and their families, the simple act of sharing tea provides the small pleasures and comforts of home. It is precisely the kind of kindness my father cherished.

In Australia, it is our privilege to support MyRoom Children’s Cancer Charity — a volunteer-led organisation dedicated to achieving a hundred percent cure for childhood cancers. We also support The Salvation Army across Australia, donating tea to community centres and supporting people experiencing homelessness, hardship and crisis. A cup of tea, is more than a drink — it is an invitation to connect. Alongside this, through our new five-year partnership with Cancer Council Australia and the Biggest Morning Tea initiative, we extend that invitation further — bringing people together around a cuppa in the service of something that matters.

To those partnerships I add more recent ones of a different kind. Bundaberg Brewed Drinks, an Australian family business that genuinely echoes our belief in kindness, supported the work of the MJF Foundation in strengthening survivors of Cyclone Ditwah on tea gardens, That programme ensured educational continuity, adding emergency support with food rations, post natal care for newborn babies and continuing beyond those early interventions. Another more recent partnership is the shared commitment to nutrition that we have forged with Shaun Christie-David, his mother Shiranee and their Plate-it-Forward. That will be the subject of another story. These partnerships are birthed in kindness, and they are not peripheral to our business, but central to it.

It is not possible to capture the scope and breadth of the impact of Dilmah in a single post. Impact, an e-publication that is updated twice a year, offers a more comprehensive overview

A Vision and Mission Refreshed

The Vision and Mission for Dilmah is fresh affirmation of my father’s legacy.

This is our Vision; every cup of Dilmah is an act of kindness — and defiance. My father built our company on a refusal to accept commoditisation, compromise, or indifference to the people who grow the world’s food. That is our inheritance and our promise. We grow our Teas and Ceylon Cinnamon with respect for the land and the people who tend it, and we share what nature gives us with both. We are a family business in the most traditional sense. Quality, Integrity and Purpose are not aspirations — they are conditions for our existence.

This is our Mission; to craft the finest tea and cinnamon in the world — growing responsibly, innovating boldly, and sharing generously. We will bring great Taste and natural Goodness to the people who drink our tea — and Kindness to the land and people who make it possible.

My father’s passing gave us the responsibility to express the values he embodied with greater clarity and effect. As growers, our responsibility begins with soils, continuing through biodiversity, the livelihoods of our people and their families, the health and happiness of our community, and those who consume what we grow. We believe every business has an irrevocable obligation to People and Nature, and a symbiotic relationship with the communities and ecosystems in which it operates.

The promise at the end of our mission statement captures everything my father stood for: to make the world a better tea. If you can make tea with integrity, purpose and kindness — if you can prove that a business built on those values can thrive, and form its strength and resilience around those values while touching the lives of hundreds of thousands — then we have a powerful guide to the kind of world that is possible with kindness.

Kindness is part of being human. For us it is also our greatest strength in unkind times. It is not just in scholarships that keep children in school, therapy that helps a child with cerebral palsy know joy, the corridor of rainforest that allows species to move freely, enriching habitats, the cup of tea offered in a New Zealand hospice, the rations delivered to a family in need, the entrepreneur given the dignity of self-reliance. It is their combined impact of People and Nature, demonstrated in the power of our global family to take a stand against greed, compromise and extractive business.

It began with one very ordinary man with a desire to make the world better. He was armed only with faith and determination, yet – for growers especially – he changed the world as we knew it. Happy Kindness Day, Thathie.

The post Kindness Day, 6th May 2026 – celebrating an extraordinary legacy appeared first on Integritea.

Tea is an incredibly valuable industry. Not just as a beverage but as researchers announced recently to a world living in the shadow of chronic disease, valuable for life itself; flavonoids in tea, “could lower the risk of developing serious health conditions and have the potential to live longer.” That study analysed data from 62,743 women and 23,687 men over 24 years, connecting flavonoid intake with lower risk of frailty, impaired movement and poor mental health. All critical concerns for an ageing global population.

Tea was first discovered in China as a medicine and practitioners of holistic, natural healing have known that value for centuries; “Tea and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) share a deeply intertwined relationship.” Tea is yet to deliver the full benefit that Nature intended, researchers Das, Banerjee, Saha and Chatterjee explain in their review of the health benefits in tea,

“Tea harbours more than 700 bioactive compounds viz, different classes of polyphenols, unique amino acid L-Theanine, alkaloids (Caffeine, Theobromine), and Volatile Flavor Compounds (VFC). Tea’s polyphenols make its inherent therapeutic potential unlimited. Tea’s significance in managing cancer, diabetes, stomach ulcer, influenza, neurological diseases, etc. is well-documented. However, advantageous biochemical capabilities of tea have yet to be fully utilised.”

There is value in tea, but true value in any industry is credible only when it extends to the lives and livelihoods of those engaged ‘upstream’ – at the source. Sri Lanka is regularly denigrated in the media for social conditions on tea estates. Australia’s ABC News recently investigated, what they termed a ‘Bitter Brew’, adding subtext, ‘The uncomfortable truth behind your cup of tea.’ The camera never lies as the saying goes and everything Naomi Selvaratnam showed was true, but what the camera could not capture was the more uncomfortable truth behind those images.

Richard and Martha Anker, Founders of the Anker Research Institute write in the 2015 Living Wage Report for Sri Lanka’s Tea Sector,

“The fact of the matter is that most of those who help to grow the food and make the other goods we in the First World consume do not earn a living wage. At the same time, most Third World exporters have a limited ability to raise wages to a living wage (which includes Sri Lanka tea estates as pointed out in this report).”

Convenient though it is to blame tea producers for inequality in the industry, as W. H. Auden wrote, “There’s always another story. There’s more than meets the eye.” This is the genesis of our story.

Exploitation of producers is nothing new. In a letter to the Editor of the Times of London in 1898, a Ceylon Tea Planter wrote, ”…heaven defend the sugar planters of the West Indies if Sir Thomas Lipton steps in to bring them into prominence as you say he has the island of Ceylon. Ceylon was very prosperous. Lipton set his eye on it and its prosperity has nearly gone. By obtaining such a control of the tea market as he has done, he has driven down the price of tea to such a level that many estates can barely pay expenses; and many planters suffer from the fall of wholesale prices, as thousands of small retail tradesmen do from Lipton’s cutting of retail prices.”

More revealing is this Ceylon Tea Planter’s concluding remark, “Let no-one mistake Sir T. Lipton and his methods – perfectly legitimate no doubt, but ruinous alike to the producer and small tradesmen.”

Lipton is described as a philanthropist, and probably was a good man simply exercising that most fundamental human trait – self-interest. The reality however is that a flaw in the capitalist system identified 127 years and 3 weeks ago, continues unchecked, it’s consequences more catastrophic than ever.

In her 2024 assessment of the parallel contradiction in the coffee industry, Editor of Fresh Cup, Ashley Rodriguez warns,

“It’s clear that coffee growing is economically not viable for farmers. The fact that there is value in the sector is both a chilling alarm that industry patterns need to be changed and a hopeful beacon that there’s a pathway to building a sustainable industry. “

In their research on the Coffee value chain, researchers at German think tank Kiel Institute, comment,

“Our empirical analysis reveals a striking pattern: while green (unprocessed) coffee exports have increased, the highest value- added has been captured through sales of roasted coffee. The roasted coffee market remains overwhelmingly dominated by high- income countries in the Global North. This indicates that lead firms in the Global North have consolidated their dominance over the most lucrative segments of the coffee trade.”

They emphasize that, “.. another crucial factor is that Global North multinationals may have a vested interest in maintaining control over roasting, packaging and branding—activities that yield the highest profits. ….This persistent concentration of economic gains aligns with existing studies on lead firms, power asymmetries and the limitations of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a tool for redistributing value added more equitably.”

In September this year, a comprehensive assessment of agri food value chains highlighted 3 critical truths evidencing dangerously skewed inequality. 1) agricultural production for food and industrial inputs has increasingly shifted to the global South, 2) global food-system income is increasingly captured by post-farm activities in the global North, and 3) a substantial share of food-system income is captured in low-tax jurisdictions with low agricultural production.

The danger is not only to growers; this sounds dramatic, but the danger is genuinely to humanity. Discount culture fuels an accelerating emphasis on cheap produce, forcing growers to become unethical, unsustainable or give up. Everybody seems to love the dopamine rush of a discount; there is ample evidence in the expansion of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Singles Day into week long buying frenzies where people acquire things they don’t need at unrealistic prices.

These are the ‘perfectly legitimate no doubt, but ruinous..’ weapons of oppression consumers unknowingly wield. Discounts blind consumers to true value, the welfare of workers, shifting attention to price, manipulated perception of price, opaque value chains, normalisation of cheapness and ultimately a discount fuelled disconnect from ethics. Even at the cost of their own health. It’s a race to the bottom for growers but it continues, growing in pace as it delivers profit to those that drive it; at unimaginable cost, because that race threatens to compromise everything we value and need more now than ever, from biodiversity and fertile soils to food safety and security.

In 2005, Canadian Law Professor Joel Bakan explained, “The corporation, like the psychopathic personality it resembles, is programmed to exploit others for profit.”

Climate change and inequality are amongst the most severe threats to human existence. Solutions to both have been evident for decades, but they come at a cost. They include agricultural innovation, strengthening rural economies, addressing the gender balance, health, welfare, reproductive health, education, nutrition, housing and the host of linked truths that feature in the routine vilification of producers.

As a speaker from Kenya desperately emphasized at the Global Dubai Tea Forum, for our collective protection from catastrophic climate change, we need to embrace sustainability, but sustainability costs and without sustainable prices, how can we be sustainable?

Solutions to inequality are the same. They cost money, and for grower’s there is tragic irony in all this; the world needs good, nutritious and healthy food and beverage, yet we are trapped in a tightening vise of discount driven commodity pricing, making that dream more challenging year by year. More tragic is the knowledge that it’s not because the money we need to make agriculture sustainable isn’t there, it just goes to the wrong pockets.

As growers, our produce is our passion and a livelihood for millions; we cannot compromise either yet daily we suffer demand for cheaper teas as an unavoidable part of the journey from harvest to consumers. The result is that poor to mediocre teas proliferate by design, finding favour among buyers motivated by profit in preference to quality. Their sales performance is often strong for a while – powered as they are by packaging worth more than their contents and marketing funded by compromise. In the long term though, it signals the disintegration of the tea category.

In the case of Cinnamon, it’s worse. People who have bought Cinnamon their whole lives may actually never have tasted true Cinnamon. Cassia is an inferior substitute for genuine Ceylon Cinnamon, having a high coumarin content and therefore toxic in high doses and lacking the wellness offered by genuine Ceylon Cinnamon. Cassia is what most people know to be Cinnamon. True Cinnamon doesn’t exist as a category so there is nothing to destroy beyond the livelihoods of artisans engaged in its production. The tragedy accompanying this is that the powerful health benefits in Cinnamon, are celebrated more in research than in the wellness of people.

Marketing is supposed to communicate value to customers but too often becomes manipulation when the truth is not told. There was a time when tea was offered with the sincerity of women and men who were genuine in their pursuit. That changed as the world welcomed tea and cinnamon, and alongside that success the acquisition of tea companies substitution of cinnamon and compromise in every element of its success.

The dysfunction is systemic and consumers are unwitting participants. The dangerous reality is harming our precious produce and worse, stimulating some of the greatest risks to humanity – climate extremes, worsening inequality, compromised food security, water and air quality. These have solution that are significantly connected to a healthy and productive rural, agricultural sector.

Together with its report of slowing progress on healthcare, the World Health Organisation warns, “…if the trend were to continue, by around 2050, chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and respiratory illnesses – will account for 86 per cent of the 90 million deaths each year: a staggering 90 per cent increase in absolute numbers, since 2019.”

Good Ceylon Tea, good quality, genuine Ceylon Cinnamon come with natural, protective benefits against nearly every chronic disease. There is nothing but the disconnect induced by discount that prevents us all from recognising the truth that good food – safe, nutritious, natural and ethical – plays a big part in getting those health indicators back on track.

The recent floods in Sri Lanka left over 600 deaths in its wake. Hardest hit were our high elevational tea growing regions. In our evaluation of what need to be done to contain the scale of the impact when the next cyclone visits us, adaptation measures were clear. What was entirely unclear was could we afford the changes that must be done.

My father formed Dilmah to make the world a better tea; not just better in taste, but also better in its impact on people and nature. Together Biodiversity Sri Lanka, and Genesis, Dilmah Centre for a Sustainable Future, analyzed the vulnerabilities with the involvement of eminent scientists and stakeholders. Dilmah will also fulfill our core commitment, using our earnings to fund the social and environmental impact work that is necessary but we are relatively a small family tea and cinnamon business and we can’t manage it all.

And what of tea producers who don’t have that ability at all because they cannot earn a fair price for produce? Neither tea industry nor Sri Lanka can genuinely afford the adaptation we need to make to continue to offer the world the healthy herb and fragrant spice. This is the context of our Grower’s Story. It echoes in every agricultural sector sustaining an existential threat that begins with tea and cinnamon, but quickly expands to include humanity.

Ceylon Tea and Ceylon Cinnamon have intrinsic value. Beyond the obvious, raw material, logistics and other direct costs, that value must include conservation of soil quality, biodiversity, lives & livelihoods of connected communities. Price is not an indicator of value. Value is a key concept in economics, and the value chain that should define fair value addition at each stage of the creation of value, in fact reveals a catastrophic manipulation. That begins with the determination of price, forcing compliance up the ‘value chain’ and driving value extraction, a concept that was central to colonialism.

As Wannaphong Durongkaveroj of the Australian National University wrote in his review of Mariana Mazzucato’s ‘The Value of Everything’,

When value extraction is masquerading as value creation, we can end up praising and rewarding non-productive activities while ignoring productive sectors.

With wishes for a Happy New Year soon to echo around the world, may that wish link with action. Happiness is good health, nutrition, a healthy environment and the likelihood of the same for our generations. Good air, water, food, and life therefore are ingredients of happiness that hold vastly greater value than the short term benefit of price for growers and consumers alike.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

The post The Grower’s Story. part 1: the context for humanity appeared first on Integritea.

I was honoured to be awarded Doctor of Business, Honoris Causa in Australia last week by the School of Business & Law at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. I have served at the School in an honorary role as Adjunct Professor of Practice in Sustainability for over a year. The ECU School of Business & Law is ranked among the top business schools in Australia (AFR BOSS Best Business Schools List 2024) and features in the top 300 universities worldwide for Business and Economics in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025.

As much of an honour as the honorary doctorate itself, was the opportunity to share my family’s business philosophy with nearly 500 students and their families at the Graduation Ceremony last Sunday. I explained to the graduates – all embarking on their journey through life – that my father could not afford business school, and how that singular blessing in disguise had led to the occasion.

Unaware as he was of prevailing business philosophy and the priority it gave stakeholder value, the pursuit of profit and market dominance at any cost, his greatest influence was the kindness my grandmother embodied. He embedded it into the business that my brother and I steward. The honour extended to me is therefore rightly theirs – my father for his faith, determination and passion, and my grandmother for the kindness she nurtured in my father.

That is the context to the award and the justification that accompanied it.

“IN RECOGNITION BY THE UNIVERSITY COUNCIL OF HIS EXCEPTIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS AS A TRULY IMPACTFUL LEADER WITHIN BUSINESS AND HIS COMMITMENT TO DRIVING POSITIVE CHANGES IN SOCIETY THROUGH INNOVATIVE SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES AND INSPIRATIONAL ADVOCACY OF HOLISTIC CORPORATE ETHICS HAS THIS DAY BEEN AWARDED THE DOCTOR OF BUSINESS, HONORIS CAUSA.”

My father taught my brother Malik and I, while impressing upon the next generation of our family, that impact and driving positive change through ethics and sustainability are features of life and business that can never compromised. Hopefully that explains the context of this award.

My most sincere appreciation to Chancellor Gaye McMath, Vice Chancellor Prof. Clare Pollock, Executive Dean Maryam Omari and to Prof. Gabriel Eweje. The honour of receiving this recognition from an university named after and embodying the values of a woman who had such profound impact on education and social justice is incalculable.

As time passes and jokes about my imminent debut in the next Harry Potter movie wear thin, I want to emphasize the critical importance of collaboration amongst purpose led businesses and academia. The benefit is mutual; science based sustainability solutions for businesses struggling to cope with a warming climate and more enlightened environmental standards. For academia, a partnership that should impress on receptive and often brilliant young minds, the wisdom and necessity of genuine commitment to kindness to people and nature in life and work.

Awards are phenomenal but they should never be the reason we do what we do, rather the validation of it. In receiving honours and accolades, we can also never forget the critical elements of every success – people and nature. Sir Isaac Newton’s magnificent perspective on this is worth repeating here, ‘If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.’

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Moments after opening the facility, it was very clear – while walking through the garden – that this was not only a butterfly garden. In their comments, Dr. Jagath and Rajika explained its ecological value, the importance of butterflies as pollinators, its environmental value, in connecting people with Nature. All true, but those are only part of the reasons for my doubt.

The MJF Centre West receives hundreds of visitors every month, Students from nearby Moratuwa University, from schools and other universities, volunteers from Sri Lanka and abroad, the children and youth from the programmes at the Centre for people with disability, elders, less fortunate youth and women. Observing the interaction of some of these visitors with the butterflies, their amazement at the complex ecosystem we call Nature, it was obvious that this garden is something altogether greater than a butterfly garden.

It is a place of Peace, for immersion in Nature induces calm – not just tranquility and peace of mind, but mental and physical calm with proven impact on mental and cardiovascular health. Lower levels of cortisol (stress hormone) delivers reduced anxiety, better mood and emotional well-being, lower risk of psychiatric disorders and elevated brain function. Time spent in Nature strengthens human immune systems, reduces blood pressure, improves attention, memory, and creativity and helps with concentration. That’s not my assertion, it’s an observation based on 832 independent studies on the human health benefits of connection with nature.

It’s a design Laboratory. If you have never observed the vivid intricacy of wing patterns and colouration on butterflies, every entrepreneur, designer and scientist must. The richness and complexity of the interrelationship of design and purpose in patterns, colours and the rationale in both is as good an explanation of the truth that form must follow function.

Some are designed for defence, some for camouflage, but every pixel that God designed in the wings of butterflies has a function connected to the wider natural environment in which each species of butterfly exists. The patterns are more creative than anything I have seen from illustrators and creative agencies around the world, the colour palettes vastly more sophisticated.

Our Dilmah Butterfly Garden is not really just a butterfly garden. It’s an laboratory for the study of insect pollinators and the future of food security, it’s a biodiversity research facility for a better understanding of genetic diversity and ecosystem resilience, it’s an indicator of a healthy climate as butterflies are an important indicator of environmental health, it is a space for creative inspiration. Butterflies have inspired artists from Salvador Dali to Damien Hirst. It is a science lab, for the study of evolution and ecology. It is an oasis of calm on the edge of a metropolis, offering mental and physical well-being.

It’s also a butterfly garden for the study of one of nature’s most engaging species and an understanding of the economic, social, ecological, cultural, environmental and medical value of butterflies and their natural ecosystem. Perception is subjective, and for centuries beauty has been known to be ‘in the eye of the beholder.’ Where Nature – and butterflies – are concerned, we humans need to broaden our perspective to value what our ancestors took for granted, for in Nature – hidden within the imprecise term ‘ecosystem services’ – is the solution to virtually every challenge we face, including direction on how we could overcome the present existential crisis.

We desperately need a change in perception away from another imprecise concept – extreme climate. Nature is a system in intricate and perfect balance, form following function – like the wings of a butterfly. It offers guidance to its benefits openly, even in a Butterfly Garden, although we ignore those cues to our peril. It’s important that we understand – the survival of the mankind depends on it.

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In 2025, that sounds quite normal but it was 1985 and when Dilmah Tea was first launched in Australia in September, 1985, it was the first time a grower in tea, coffee or cocoa offered their produce to customers. Four and a half centuries of European colonisation had ravaged the once rich island, with its advanced civilization, cultural, environmental and scientific sophistication. 2 years after Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was then known, gained independence from Britain, Merrill J. Fernando embarked on his mission. 35 years later Dilmah reached Australian consumers.

35 years is a very long time for a farmer to bring his produce to market. Merrill J. Fernando was neither slow nor patient – armed solely with his faith in God, his belief in integrity and quality, and a relentless determination, he battled a colonial economic system. In 1948 our nation received her political independence, although the battle was against transnational corporations – heirs to colonial economic power – whose market dominance and access had set the stage for colonial exploitation to continue.

Embraced by views of Sydney Harbour, and the warmth of some of Ceylon’s Finest Teas, we explored the incredible diversity of taste, the natural antioxidant goodness and purpose in fine tea. Insight from Edith Cowan University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dr. Benjamin H. Parmenter, explained the powerful, natural health potential in tea. Ben was co-lead of researchers from Australia, Ireland and Australia whose findings suggest that, “Flavonoid intakes of around 500 mg a day was associated with a 16% lower risk of all-cause mortality, as well as a ~10% lower risk of CVD, type 2 diabetes, and respiratory disease. That’s roughly the amount of flavonoids that you would consume in two cups of tea.”

Then there was my father’s friend and our passionate partner in tea inspired gastronomy, Chef Peter Kuruvita, who shared his unique perspective on crafting a richer high tea experience by putting fine tea back in high tea. Guests savoured our 85 Reserve collection, launched to mark that day in 1985 when my father changed the world of tea. Our teas dignified Peter’s exceptional cuisine, first enhancing that experience with flavours, aromas, texture elevated and next a clean palate underlining the taste experience, and assuring enhanced digestion afterwards for a truly holistic combination.

There is another side to tea gastronomy, and that is the delicious synergy that tea and cheese conspire to present when savoured together. The magic of tea pairing with fine food or cheese is simple explained as 1+1 equalling 5. Good tea, delightful on its own, good food, similarly delicious on its own, together elevated by an explosion of flavour, texture and flavour harmony. Like many of life’s most valuable lessons, the phenomenon of tea pairing cannot be explained; it must be experienced.

Thus came Valerie Henbest, a phenomenon in cheese, explaining the subject of her passion in melodic, accented English. Watte, tea from the four distinctive tea growing regions of Sri Lanka, first launched in 2003 by my father, were reborn as Watte, Single Garden Teas. They each magnificently expressed the quality of cheeses that Valerie presented through the fingerprint of nature, the sunshine, winds, rainfall, and soils that produce aroma, flavour, mouthfeel and finish in fine tea.

The finale was a little different. My son Amrit Merrill Joseph Fernando, offering a youthful perspective on his grandfather’s tea – through the lens of mixology. In its extraordinary, nature induced variety, there is a tea for every mood, celebration and season, and for every salad, entrée, dessert, cheese .. and spirit. Joined by Sai Hamsala, Sri Lankan-Australian mixologist, Amrit offered iced tea with our Elixir of Ceylon Tea and introduced Sai, tea cocktail mixology fuelled by tea and cinnamon inspired gins from Dutch Rules Distilling.

It was an occasion worth celebrating. Not for taste, nor for wellness, or for gastronomy, but as an acknowledgement that good taste is a construct that cannot be limited to palate alone. 40 years ago, my father’s invitation to customers to ‘do try it,’ had rich context in his promise of taste, natural goodness and kindness to people and nature. 40 years later, that pledge – now the legacy of the world’s Teamaker – has only intensified in its impact.

As 2nd and 3rd generation of Dilmah, the legacy of taste that we honour is not limited to the palate of our guests. It begins with our soils and biodiversity, it expands through advocacy for a better world, it is defined by integrity, innovation that is genuine, taste that is good for our customers, and it is strengthened by the livelihoods of less fortunate people around the world. Good taste must always resonate across palate, wellness, and genuinely, positively impact lives and nature.

That’s the kind of taste that’s worth celebrating.

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Our father – Merrill J. Fernando – was disciplined, and he demanded discipline in us, because he knew that this was a key ingredient of success. He told us that we should never compromise our integrity; do what is right, because it is right, and regardless of expedience or profit, always do what is right. Powerful stuff. I didn’t know it then, but I do now. Those words have given me incredible clarity, and coupled with the parallel wisdom he embraced and passionately advocated – always be kind and always live purposefully – he equipped us with the tools to continue his mission after his lifetime.

There are more than a few life lessons in all that, and while it is hard to summarise a lifetime’s worth of wisdom, there is one more that is more important than any other success factor and yet not taught in business schools; humility. The higher you go, he would advise, the more humble you should be. Otherwise the people you meet on your way up, will see you on your way down too.

On May 6th, joined by our global Dilmah Family, we recognised the significance of the foundation that my father built, not just for my brother and I but for thousands around the world. In aligning his passion for tea with his belief in kindness and integrity, he changed the world of tea. Connecting this vision with his faith in God, he unlocked a legacy of purposeful kindness that grows even today, 2 years after he passed on.

In refreshing the emblem that is the identity of Dilmah, the brand our father named after my brother Malik and I, to which he devoted his life, we celebrate the value and values of our father. The video explains it all. Happy Father’s Day.

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For Merrill J. Fernando, kindness was a very natural part of life and business. Unable to afford university, he was fortunate in lacking knowledge of economic theory and so he was guided by his faith in God, and the values his mother instilled in him. He believed the reason you make money is to give it away to people less fortunate than you are. That is the strength and resilience of our family business, making life and work more fulfilling and giving real purpose to our brand. It means that kindness is not limited to this special day, but an everyday consideration in every interaction with people and nature.

There are 110 armed conflicts around the world today, people undergoing unspeakable pain and hardship. At the same time we confront the twin scourges of inequality and a climate crisis that could intensify that pain for unborn, future generations. We need kindness more than ever. My family, our colleagues and I reaffirm today – the 2nd Kindness Day – our commitment to the values my father represented through his life of devotion to tea, and his belief in the importance of kindness to people and nature.

My father’s philosophy on life is beautifully expressed in words that were prominent on his desk at work, by Stephen Grellet, “I expect to pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing that I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it now.”

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That notion of luxury is presented in a guest experience harmonized by the ancient tradition of making tea. Tea making evolved over the ages in the knowledge that the influence of Nature combined with the art, science & passion of the artisan, are the ingredients of great tea. The idea of the Natural Luxury Sommelier Challenge was birthed in Sri Lanka, as it had to start with the perspective of Teamakers devoted to tea. It began its global journey in China, for that is where Emperor Shen Nung, first discovered tea, nearly 5,000 years ago.

88 teams participated from across China, with 12 finalists presenting their tea inspired gastronomy and mixology live to Judges Stephen Lim (F&B), Sven Heinrich Wunrum (culinary), Huy Hoang (mixology), and Dilhan C. Fernando (tea). The Challenge tasks Chefs and Mixologist in two person teams, with producing exceptional tea inspired food, beverage and pairings with Respect. Let me explain the capital ‘R’.

Respect is central to luxury in the 21st Century. Natural Luxury demands knowledge and consideration of ingredients and their heritage, in selecting method of preparation, temperatures and flavour combinations. Those details are important as aroma, flavour and antioxidant goodness is often volatile, and contestants need expertise to honour taste, culture and plant based goodness in each ingredient.

That connects to respect for artisans, their passion, effort and livelihoods. Artisanship was central to my father’s lifetime of devotion to making the world a better tea; its relevance to our future cannot be overstated. Respect also for Natural Wellness, with understanding of Nature’s pharmacopeia, the goodness in herbs, spices and roots, framed in the terroir of specific teas. Importantly, understanding their relevance to human health and respecting that wellness without compromising flavour and cultural context.

These are the elements of a sophisticated and contemporary expression of luxury, offering the taste of nature, plant based health and wellness, genuine ethics in the respect for artisans and their livelihoods. This is good taste with sophistication linked to honest and respectful culinary tradition. Ultimately all this forms genuinely conscious experiences, luxury for the conscious guest.

The Natural Luxury Sommelier Challenge is our endeavour to inspire respect for fine tea, Ceylon Cinnamon and other ingredients that – when made with respect – offer extraordinary flavour and health benefits. It also aims to promote more inspired gastronomy, with knowledge of ingredients, and importantly awareness and respect for the efforts of artisans who produce them. These are the elements of hospitality in the 21st Century, as they come together in our cups, glasses, plates and bowls.

Each contestant was considered a winner for having accepted the Challenge. Teams comprising a Sommelier and Chef were required to present 4 tea inspired drinks, each inspired with paired savoury and sweet food. Presentations were crafted around themes linked to cultural heritage, sustainability, and in some instances, play. All were impressive but some were exceptional, and the joint winners were Team 2, Cody Zhu and Rachel Zhang (Wuhan Marriott Hotel Wuchang) and Team 8, Lukmanul Hakim and Amanda Au-Yeung Mei Wah (Ritz Carlton Hong Kong).

From Shanghai, Natural Luxury Sommelier will traverse the world, exploring lost ingredients and food cultures, honouring artisanship, inviting a fresh perspective on respectful cooking for wellness. The objective is a Tea growing family’s desire for a sophisticated experience of quality, taste adventure and wellness in fine tea, Ceylon Cinnamon and other key ingredients. Ultimately to deliver luxurious guest experiences reflecting evolved luxury in the 21st century.

Our Natural Luxury Sommelier Challenge could not have started its journey around the world from any other country for China is also the place where Tang Dynasty poet Lu T’ung wrote ‘Seven Bowls of Tea’ so eloquently describing the inspiration and mystery in fine tea.

The first bowl soothes the throat, while the second banishes loneliness. At the third bowl, I search my soul and find 5,000 volumes of ancient poems. With the fourth bowl, a slight perspiration washes away all unhappy things. At the fifth bowl, my bones and muscles are cleansed. With the sixth bowl, I am in communication with the immortal spirit. The seventh bowl ? It is forbidden : already a cool, ethereal breeze begins to soothe my whole body.

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It’s a holiday and a lot of people are having fun today. Fun and laughter are a good thing – they reduce stress and increase seratonin levels; that’s really good for our health. I hate to be a killjoy, but there is a startling absurdity in all this. Just a couple of years ago in 2022, we were reeling in the aftermath of a pandemic. COVID dramatically exposed the fragility of civilization. Remember when our panic at the power of a coronavirus one billionth of a metre in size induced fear at the prospect of touching someone? When 100 human corpses were found rotting in U-Haul trucks in New York?

In those times of uncertainty when we never knew what crisis tomorrow would bring, we resolved to change. Yet the year of uncertainty was followed by a year of inaction, greater income disparity, gender inequality, violence, delusion. 700 million people – 8.5% of the world’s population – are reported by the World Bank, as existing on less than $2.15 a day.

In 2015, UN member states agreed on a shared vision for sustainable growth, aimed at improving education and health, reducing inequality and boosting sustainable growth while strengthening climate resilience and preserving biodiversity. Only 17% of the 17 goals are on track, with a third worsening, and nearly half showing moderate progress. Alongside that, the UBS Global Wealth Report shows that the world is getting richer but the World Inequality Report shows that the richest 1% pocketed over 20% of global income. In the US the richest 1% are reported to hold 40.5% of national wealth.

Writing in the Financial Times in April, 2020 Arundhati Roy offered compelling advice. She wrote, “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”

A brilliant metaphor for the change that everyone knew we needed. Yet here we are lurching towards what Secretary General Antonio Guterres, too accurately describes, “Humanity has opened the gates to hell…. Horrendous heat is having horrendous effects. Distraught farmers watching crops carried away by floods. Sweltering temperatures spawning disease. Climate action is dwarfed by the scale of the challenge.”

That was in September last year. To that opening statement he added that if nothing changes we are headed towards a dangerous and unstable world. Again. This time without a vaccine.

Just over a year later, there he was again at COP29 in Baku, pleading for humanity to save itself. The Conference ended with wealthy nations committing $300 billion of the $1.3 trillion that is estimated to be needed. Since 2006 when Geoffrey Stern convincingly explained that concerted action was needed to stabilise the climate, and warned of the costs of delay, promises from wealthy nations have failed to materialize. Climate finance – without which indebted, poorer nations cannot build resilience to a changing climate, nor realign for greener growth – is inaccessible to the nations that need it.

The Global Conflict Tracker reports 27 ongoing conflicts worldwide. Apart from the deaths of an estimate 230,000 people from those conflicts this year alone, the impact on the global economy has been cataclysmic. Conflict, global warming, economic crises are increasing hunger and fueling food insecurity. The system we believed in and many saw as needing transformation, is so out of control that some – very few people – are even profiting from that uncertainty. The container shipping industry – a critical lifeline for export reliant nations – is reported to be ‘on track for its most profitable year since the COVID era.’ PHAATA attributes those soaring profits significantly to the Red Sea crisis.

In 2022 an analyst described the record profits container carriers reported, saying, ‘Liner carriers have never made so much money.’ 12 of the largest shipping lines reported earnings of $95 billion for the fiscal year. Profits this year are said to have surpassed that. On the other side of the supply chain, several governments are taking supermarkets and food giants to task for ‘greedflation.’ Profiting from crisis.

That’s a pretty horrible indictment on humanity. And on Christmas Day too. It gets worse, but I am coming to my point.

The Lancet reports that the prevalence of depression has increased 25%. That’s around 5% of all adults globally, who may need clinical intervention. 13% of children aged 12-17 in the US are reported to have had at least one major depressive episode in the past year. People and planet are clearly having a rough time. Apart from pretending its not happening, neither governments nor the people we call our leaders, have shown any ability at leadership or resolving the multiple crises we are in.

Christmas Day is probably a good time to start working out what we might do differently next year. Fresh in the minds of many of us are the words of pastors, who likely explained that Christmas Day is not about Santa, and pointed us to a verse in the Bible that states, “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”. Some probably went on to explain that the Saviour they refer to, Jesus Christ, came to exhort us to love God and love each other. They probably added that He died to seal that promise into certainty.

In 2014 a scientific study warned us that social media was fueling a herd mentality, compromising individual capacity for analytical reasoning. It was hotly debated at the time, and while the evidence is likely to have become stronger, you would probably never see it because of the social media and their algorithms that now control the herd. Unfathomable Satanic Christmas events are encouraged while extending a Christmas greetings is fraught with complications in some societies, and speaking itself has become challenging; a UK university prohibited reference to ‘forefathers’ and a local authority also in the UK insists ‘cats eyes’ are referred to as ‘road studs’ due to the perception of gender exclusivity and implied violence against cats. And the planet is in crisis.

Our world is broken. Unborn generations are increasingly likely to face unimaginable pain and hardship. The Miracle of Christmas is the most compelling opportunity we have for the Peace, Love and Joy we need to fix it. It’s not about religion, it’s about hope and harmony.

Merry Christmas.

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