Pelwatte Dairy donates milk powder for underprivileged children in Badulla

Saturday, 24 November 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Sri Lanka’s 100% local dairy manufacturer, Pelwatte Dairy Industries Ltd. (PDIL), has for years been instrumental in driving Sri Lanka towards being self-sufficient in milk. A part of the company’s approach has also been to uplift the lives of those involved in the dairy and related industries in the areas it operates in. The company as a part of its Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives recently donated milk powder to underprivileged children in the Badulla area.

Upon a request made by the Uva Socio and Community Development Centre, which is the social action arm of the Catholic Church in Badulla, PDIL contributed to an educations assistance program for Grade 5 students. Hailing from the rural areas and estate sector, these children have been identified as less privileged and marginalised. A total of 113 students from eight schools have been chosen under the program and were given evening extra classes targeting for the Grade V scholarship Exams.

Fr. Raveen Perera, the Director of the USCOD Centre in Badulla said, “Unfortunately we realised that the children in the programme are under-nourished for lack of food. Their parents are mostly farmers and labourers and cannot afford to give extra food for their children. After discussions with the Parents and Teachers Committees, we decided to give some nourishing food with the support of well-wishers. The most important thing we decided to give the children is milk powder and are very thankful to Pelwatte Dairy for coming forward to support this worthy cause.”

“Pelwatte has two main goals as an organisation. The first is to promote macro and micro scale dairy farming to increase production of raw milk as it drives its goals of reaching self-sufficiency of the dairy sector in Sri Lanka. Our second goal is to provide high nutrition products at an affordable rate for all. Furthermore we also focus all our efforts on using 100% locally collected milk and do not add colours, flavours or preservatives to our products, ensuring the highest quality,” PDIL Managing Director Akmal Wickramanayake said.

Apart from providing the milk powder, PDIL also hopes to promote dairy farming as an additional source of income for these families. PDIL will help them start small scale farms and will purchase raw milk from these farms at a fair price which will in turn uplift their socio economic standards.