Commercial Bank brings hope to Sandasirigama

An underprivileged community of 105 families in Mathugama were given hope by the Commercial Bank of Ceylon which completed several projects to improve the living conditions and aspirations of its members.

People in Sandasirigama, a model village, seven kilometers off Mathugama received assistance to improve livelihoods while their children received an IT lab, a shrine room and bank accounts with initial deposits under the Bank's initiative.

The Manager of Commercial Bank’s Mathugama Branch Chandima Dissanayake, Senior Manager - Development Credit Delakshan Hettiarachchi, Regional Manager - South Eastern Region Leel Rodrigo and Asst. General Manager - Personal Banking Vimal Fernando at the IT lab set up by the Bank at Galleniya Kanda Primary school, Sandasirigama.

'The project, conducted under the Village Development Program funded by the CSR Trust of the Bank, was aimed at developing infrastructure and uplifting the economy of the village by identifying the best economic activities for the area,' Commercial Bank's Senior Manager Development Credit Delakshan Hettiarachchi said.

The Mathugama project involved the provision of loans to 58 villagers at low interest rates with easy repayment methods to develop their cultivations. Among them were 43 tea smallholders. Others were cultivators of betel and pepper for which the soil condition of the village was found to be good.

'Tea cultivation was the main source of income of this village but since the tea industry faced a crisis in the recent past, cultivators found it difficult to repay their loans. That is why we encouraged villagers to try other cultivations,' Hettiarachchi said.

The project also involved setting up an IT lab comprising of two computers and a printer for the Galleniya Kanda primary school which is the only school in the village.

The IT lab has attracted more pupils to the school which has increased to 44 earlier there were only 29 pupils, Hettiarachchi said.

He said a syllabus on IT is to be provided to the school and exams will be conducted by IDM Computer Studies. Best performing students will be given a chance to follow a further course in IT at IDM at the end of which they will receive valid certificates that will be helpful in their career prospects, Hettiarachchi said.

Commercial Bank also built a shrineroom for the school to encourage children in their religious activities.

Forty three children in the village were presented with Commercial Bank Arunalu accounts with an initial deposits of Rs. 500. These children were given tills to collect more money that could be deposited into these accounts.

We hope these activities will inculcate the savings habit, Hettiarachchi said.