Berendina holds Best Entrepreneur Awards
Berendina Micro Investments Company (BMIC) held its Best Entrepreneur Awards recently at MAS Fabric Park in Thulhiriya.
The much-looked-forward-to event is held biennially, with this year being the seventh consecutive occasion, where the most illustrious and enterprising entrepreneurs, financed and supported by BMIC, are identified, appreciated and felicitated.
While rewarding the top achievers, this also encourages the rest to strive harder and drives their ambition with a set target – to get on stage and collect an award at the next event, to be held in two years. The contest is held at both national and regional level, under five categories: Best Small Entrepreneur, Best Micro Entrepreneur, Best Upcoming Entrepreneur, Best Entrepreneur in Agriculture and Best Entrepreneur in Animal Husbandry.
Among 60,000 entrepreneurs supported by BMIC, 195 were shortlisted as nominees. Of these, five national and 23 regional level best entrepreneurs were awarded, while all of the nominees, hailing from Kegalle, Anuradhapura, Nuwara Eliya, Trincomalee and Batticaloa, received commendation certificates at the ceremony.
BMIC Managing Director Anura Athapattu addressing the audience related an incident where he had met a thriving businessman on his travels, who was a recipient of a Berendina Best Entrepreneur Award, back in 2004. Having sought assistance from Berendina to grow his business, he put all his efforts into it and over the years went from strength to strength, winning the Berendina award along the way to become the successful businessman he is today.
Athapattu reiterated that his sincerest wish was that all those in the audience take this man as an example and strive to emulate him, so as to help not only themselves and their families but also to contribute to the economic growth of the country as well.
In addition to the nominees and all BMIC branch representatives, as well as Chairman Jagath Godakanda and Deputy Managing Director Charith Fernando, along with the directors, management, staff and other invitees of BMIC, the event was also attended by representatives of two microfinance organisations and an NGO from Nepal, who wanted to observe the enterprise development service (EDS) methodology practiced by BMIC and to implement the same by their own respective organisations, in Nepal.