Is your mattress healthy for you?

We have come together after 30 years of fighting and warring, and the main requirement of our people is healthiness.

Healthiness is mainly given by your sleep. The secret lies inside your mattress. Someone should come forward to teach these small things. Win or lose, it is our responsibility to take up the mantle. This is more than a marketing tool; it is a process that seeks to teach people about the pros and cons of their sleeping habits.

Why did you decide to bear the responsibility?

We as Sri Lankans have benefited from free education. Even I have gone to university because of free education. I have a debt of gratitude to the country for the opportu- nities it has given me. I feel that I need to give back to my country. For the past 30 years, I have been an innovator. I have introduced many items during the course of my career. Many products that are sold under leading brand names are my innovations. I identify myself as an innovator rather than a businessman that is why I decided to take up this task as well.

What do you expect from this?

I expect to help build a healthy Sri Lanka. We need a healthy society. A mattress helps immensely towards a healthy individual. Consider an infant, 50% of its life is spent on a mattress. If the parents select the wrong mattress for their infant due to unawareness, think of the damage it will cause the child. This is a social responsibility, and I expect to educate the country.

Do you plan on taking this message beyond the borders of the country?

Healthy sleeping culture has already been embraced by westerners. They invest heavily on their mattresses because they know the value. We have to learn from them and then teach it to the countries in the South Asian region, which are largely ignorant of the advances of technology and the findings of science.

Do you believe that under the OLIVE brand, you will realise your expectations?

It depends on how much we pene- trate the society, and how effective we are at communicating this message. We have already conducted several sessions, and people are very receptive. They ask us why we haven’t talked about this before. So, I am confident and hopeful that the Sri Lankan people would embrace the message we have to communicate to them.

If you remove the O from OLIVE, what remains is LIVE. We named our company OLIVE with the hope of communicating our desires: ‘All Live’.

Together with the sleeping culture, we are introducing the nontoxic bedroom concept, which we will talk about further in the near future. We aim to teach the people about creating a bedroom that repels toxic objects.