Supporting Sri Lankans through COVID-19

Deutsche Bank Colombo, along with its charity partners Seth Sarana Caritas Colombo, Association of Intellectually Disabled, JK Foundation and SAGT, last week announced their partnerships have positively impacted thousands of Sri Lankan families this year.

Deutsche Bank Sri Lanka’s CSR In the Community program contributed to four Seth Sarana Caritas Colombo community projects this year, with Caritas deploying funds across several outreach programs, ranging from food and shelter to COVID-19 medical support.

Chief Country Officer Vikas Arora stated: “Of all the COVID-19 relief programs we supported this year, we are especially proud that the Molecular Virology Laboratory at the National Infectious Diseases Hospital is up and running and providing invaluable and much-needed diagnostic services during this COVID-19 pandemic.”

As well as supporting essential health services, Deutsche Bank funded personal protection equipment kits for intellectually disabled children and COVID relief food packs for many families as the pandemic shut down the economy and people’s livelihoods.

“Helping Sri Lankan families with Food Packs of daily essentials during this COVID-19 crisis has also been a priority. Our relief efforts with Caritas helped more than 3,200 vulnerable families across many districts who were in desperate need of essential food,” Arora said. 

For as little at EUR 10 (Rs. 2,267) per family, Deutsche Bank funded 3,200 food packs, which contained rice, flour, dhal, sugar, tea leaves, milk powder, coconut, noodles, chilli powder, soya, as well as face masks, hand sanitizer and soap.

Seth Sarana Caritas Colombo’s Fr. Lawrence Ramanayake said: “We identified the most marginalised segments of the community to receive this support – single mothers with young school-going children, young widows with children, low-income families with disabled members, and the elderly – and arranged distribution. You could see the relief in their eyes,” he added.

Other bank initiatives included the employee ‘Steps Challenge’ which saw 60 employees in Sri Lanka take more than 15 million steps over 40 days, to mark Deutsche Bank’s 40th anniversary in Sri Lanka this year and to fundraise for the needy. This distance was the equivalent of each staff member walking six kilometres per day.