Maliban honours community-wide citizens under ‘Uththama Pranama’ CSR initiative

Maliban, the pioneering biscuit manufacturing company in Sri Lanka, marked Poson Day celebrations and the dawn of the Kataragama Perahera festival season by facilitating the most deserving citizens, through its flagship CSR program ‘Uththama Pranama’. Inspiring goodness for over 60 years, Maliban conceptualised ‘Uththama Pranama’ with the sole purpose of empowering the lives of citizens across all communities nationwide.

This year, Maliban provided wheelchair support for over 3,000 citizens, including senior citizens and other differently-abled people from various age groups, to fulfil their religious observances during the holy day. Furthermore, the company organised a dansala which housed over 60,000 citizens. In addition, Maliban employees took part in a Rice, Biscuit and Malt dansala to serve those who attended the festivities, which Maliban has been carrying out for years. The highlight of the biscuit dansala was the fully rendered support provided by the differently-abled soldiers who took part in the service. This was executed to ensure their satisfaction as a gratitude to their service to the country.

The wheelchair support service, which began from Ruwanvelisaya to the Sri Maha Bodhi Temple, covered a stretch of 1 km, patronising the participants with comfort throughout the program. These endeavours took place in addition to the dansala which occurs throughout the year at the Sri Mahabodiya. Devotees who visited the religious temple were provided snacks during their period of daily worship. Furthermore, as part of the ‘Uththama Pranama’ CSR theme, Maliban also initiated a program during the Kataragama Perahera season, which took place at the Kataragama Dewale and Kiri Wehera. The highlight of this initiative was nationwide volunteers provided their support to carry out wheelchair services for over 1800 citizens who were visiting these places of worship. In addition, Maliban administrated a biscuit dansala which catered to over 65000 people, community-wide. Continuing their unceasing support to local communities, the organisation also carried out their 57th annual dansala which served both breakfast and lunch meals for devotees.

Commenting on the initiative, Maliban Managing Director Kumudika Fernando said: “At Maliban, we consider CSR as an integral part of our company culture. Over the years we have contributed to the society through numerous means with the sole objective of giving back to the society. This concept was another initiative of our late founder and Chairman A.G. Hinnyappuhamy, who shared great ambition in serving the needs of mankind. As a company which strives to inspire goodness to people, we have initiated a range of CSR activities, targeting construction of schools, hospitals, temples, community centres and many more. Our CSR vision is to empower the lives of citizens by elevating their personal, social, economic status. The Poson Day program and the Kataragama program were executed with the purpose of giving back to citizens across all communities and social standings within the country.”

“As a company built on the philanthropy of social responsibility, Maliban’s commitment to CSR has been exemplified over the past 60 years through various initiatives. Our company continues to raise the bar in industry performance through our state-of the art manufacturing processes which produce the highest quality products and bring novel experiences to taste buds” said Maliban Group CEO Ravi Jayawardena.

Maliban is the first biscuit manufacturing company in Sri Lanka to win 3 National quality awards and obtain international recognition by being bestowed ‘The Prestigious Brands of Asia Award’. For the third consecutive year, Maliban was ranked as one of the ‘Most Loved Brands’ in the country, thereby setting the bar as the most loved biscuit brand by customers. Their ability to continuously win the hearts of customers throughout the years is a result of their undying commitment and passion towards delivering products with incomparable quality and safety, whilst defining the norms of corporate social responsibility.