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People’s Leasing Deputy General Manager – Marketing Laksanda Gunawardena receiving the award for one of the 10 Best CSR/Sustainability Projects from JASTECA Trustee Athula Edirisinghe in the presence of JASTECA President Nimal Perera and JASTECA Committee Member Nishan Fernando
Sri Lanka’s leading non-bank finance sector company, People’s Leasing & Finance PLC, was recognised as one of the 10 Best CSR/Sustainability projects, at the Ian Dias Abeysinghe Memorial JASTECA CSR /Sustainability Awards 2020 recently.
The annual awards was presented for the 24th time by the Japan-Sri Lanka Technical and Cultural Association (JASTECA) at the Galadari Hotel, Colombo.
The Ian Dias Abeysinghe Memorial JASTECA CSR/Sustainability Awards recognised People’s Leasing’s commitment towards uplifting early childhood education in Sri Lanka. The company invested in this initiative as investment in early years leads to better education, health, social and economic outcomes later on, increasing revenues for the nation and reducing the need for costly social spending.
People’s Leasing spearheaded this initiative guided by the apex institutions specialised in early childhood education and care. Highlights of the key activities included the investment towards improving the indoor and outdoor learning environment of the Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDCs) located islandwide that are operated with minimal facilities.
The centres were identified through the Children’s Secretariat and the development work was monitored through the Early Childhood Development assistants and the heads of the branch network regionally and 121 ECDCs benefitted through this investment.
Further, a series of capacity building programs for preschool teachers were financially supported by People’s Leasing on activity based lesson planning and application of creativity in early childhood development to promote holistic development of preschoolers.
The programs were successfully conducted with the assistance of specialists in this field of early childhood education with years of experience and expertise. Moreover a series of awareness programs were conducted targeting the parents of preschoolers on progressive parenting towards home-based early childhood development.
Deputy General Manager – Marketing Laksanda Gunawardena said human capital was a critical part of our nation’s sustainable progress and the quality of human capital could be improved through investment in early childhood education.
“Our financial assistance was ably supported by staff members from the islandwide branch network who volunteered their time and skills in successfully implementing these initiatives. People’s Leasing also invests in uplifting school education and entrepreneurship building to contribute towards sustainable development in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” he added.
People’s Leasing started business operations in 1996 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of one of the largest State Banks in Sri Lanka, the People’s Bank. People’s Leasing is currently the highest rated non-bank financial institution in the country, with a “A+ (Ika)” rating from Fitch Ratings Lanka Ltd. and also rated as the number one non-bank financial services brand by Brand Finance Lanka.
The company was also recognised as one of the 10 Best Corporate Citizens in the country by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce. People’s Leasing is also ranked No. 03 for the company’s Transparency in Integrated Corporate Reporting (TRAC) by Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL).
PLC’s responsible and inclusive financial services includes leasing, auto loans, fixed deposits, savings deposits, housing and business loans, gold loans, margin trading, factoring and Islamic financial services.
People’s Leasing conglomerate consists of six subsidiary companies including People’s Insurance PLC, People’s Micro-Commerce Ltd., People’s Leasing Property Development Ltd., People’s Leasing Fleet Management Ltd., People’s Leasing Havelock Properties Ltd., and the company’s foreign venture, Lankan Alliance Finance Ltd, in Bangladesh. The uniqueness of People’s Leasing is the company’s capacity to offer a spectrum of people friendly, customised financial solutions under one roof, including the digital presence creating a seamless, convenient customer service experience mostly for the small and medium entrepreneurs for their livelihood development purpose.