Community service projects by Ceylon Biscuits gathers momentum

Galenbindunuwewa, a remote area in North Central Sri Lanka, in the Anuradhapura district, home to a community of about 120 families, was the most recent beneficiary of the ‘Munchee Samaga Gamata Sarana’ community programme designed to uplift the living standards of our rural people.

Munchee, the flagship brand of Ceylon Biscuits Ltd (CBL), has been reaching out across the country to reach the least privileged communities with their CSR programme Munchee Samaga Gamata Sarana over the past several years. Last year, the programme saw an acceleration in activities which enabled it to reach a fresh new milestone of 25 projects in one financial year bringing the total to 150, according to a company media release.

Residents of Galenbindunuwewa, teamed up with the contractors and the Munchee sales team of the area and workers on site to help build a community hall for the area.

Munchee Samaga Gamata Sarana CSR project has exceeded a budget of Rs. 40 million to date since its launch in 2004.

“The key factors and mainstays of the programme’s unequivocal success is that it benefits the entire community of the area and are not confined to a group or one person. Munchee’s programmes uplift the facilities and the living standard of the entire community giving them an ownership of the project they helped to complete,” it said.

“Our CSR is not designed for sporadic spending however worthy the cause may be. Rather it is designed to fund sustainable projects bringing long-term benefits to the entire community. We make a genuine attempt to be involved at all levels of the projects because employees of CBL truly believe in making a difference to the lives of the people,” said Nalin Karunaratne, CBL CEO.

“For an example it is not unusual for our sales team who initiates and coordinates projects and in- house teams who assist the sales team with the paper work involved, to spend time to visit those places, help to finish the projects in addition to the actual work/ targets they perform in office because they believe in making a change in the lives of these people,” Mr. Karunaratne added.

So far about 60 per cent of the projects have focused on developing education channels for the community and concentrate on developing or constructing school buildings, libraries, and science laboratories. One of the main projects for schools has been installing water purification systems as children in these areas do not have access to clean drinking water.