Brandix Apparel Limited continued its annual ‘Ran Daru Thilina’ programme for the sixth consecutive year, providing 8,354 children of Brandix Associates with schoolbags and stationery items for the new school year. This year’s programme was held under the patronage of the Minister of Education Hon. Dinesh Gunawardena, and attended by representatives from Brandix, BOI and government officials. Ran Daru Thilina has benefited over 37,000 children since its inception in 2016, and this year’s programme saw the presentation of stationery packs to 1,000 students from the community for the first time as the Group further extended its Manusathkara CSR efforts to inspire the education of future leaders.
Minister of Education, Hon. Dinesh Gunawardena shared his thoughts on Ran Daru Thilina, at the handover event. “A child’s education is not guaranteed just through free education and by building schools. We need to all get together as parents, teachers, as a society as a whole, to encourage the habit of education and learning to build a new generation that is ready to take on future challenges. The knowledge you gather becomes the foundation for your success and will stay with you forever. Hence, providing and supporting their education is the greatest gift a parent can give their child. Brandix has understood this well, and I want to thank the company on behalf of the Education Ministry and the Government for taking leadership and setting an example in supporting the continuation of children’s education through this initiative as well as other meaningful programmes,” the Minister stated.
Conceived as an initiative under the Educate pillar of Brandix’s Manusathkara CSR framework, Ran Daru Thilina has enriched the lives of the children of Brandix Associates from nursery to Grade 5 for the past six years. The schoolbags for children between Grades 3 – 5 contain exercise books, drawing books and other essential stationery items, while the schoolbags of younger children also include modelling clay, scissors and crayons.
“Education is a key focus area of our CSR strategy,” said Malika Samaraweera, Head of CSR at Brandix, “and at Brandix, we believe in caring for our own. So Ran Daru Thilina is very important for us, as it enables a huge burden to be lifted from the shoulders of our own Associates, who otherwise have to deal with multiple book lists at the beginning of each school year. The company is invested in expanding Ran Daru Thilina to as many students as possible, and this year we started including students within the vicinity of our Avissawella plant and hope to gradually expand this to our other locations as well.”
In addition to Ran Daru Thilina, Brandix also has a scholarship scheme titled ‘Ran Daru Scholarships’, under which financial assistance is extended to the children of Associates at Grade 5, Ordinary Level and Advanced Level examinations, and ‘Ran Daru Abhises’ a scholarship designed to enable students selected to state universities to continue their higher education without hindrance, thereby strengthening the future learned workforce of the country.
Brandix is a leader in Sri Lanka’s apparel industry with a purpose to ‘deliver Inspired Solutions through Inspired People.’ The company has delivered apparel solutions to world-renowned brands for nearly 50 years and employs more than 60,000 across nine countries. On a journey to be the most sustainable apparel manufacturer in the region, Brandix strives to inspire real change across every point of its operations and all its stakeholders. To learn more about Brandix, please visit www.brandix.com.
