Saturday Dec 14, 2024
Saturday Dec 14, 2024
Tuesday, 14 June 2016 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Dulan de Silva, Executive Chairman of Give2Lanka, former Executive Chairman of Berendina Group and founder of CEO SEEDS, was nominated an Honorary Fellow of the United National Friendship Organization at a function held at the BMICH recently. The award was presented by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya.
Among the service oriented work Dulan has pioneered in meriting this honour, were the establishment of the first best practices micro finance institute in Sri Lanka (SEEDS) in 1986, which then went on to become the biggest Sri Lankan NGO in the 1990s. He also established and headed the Berendina Group for 23 years. Berendina is currently the largest Sri Lankan NGO group and Berendina Microfinance, by itself, is the largest Sri Lankan NGO. He has further undertaken over 100 consultancies in 15 countries for number of multilateral and bi-lateral agencies including the World Bank, ADB, UNDP, New York, IFAD, FAO, DFID and UNOPS.
He was also a program Director of IUCN in Pakistan and head of Program in Cambodia. In Sri Lanka too, he has provided consultancy services to CIDA, Dutch Embassy, UNOPS, IFAD, etc. and worked to strengthen the Government’s work in rural and community development in collaboration with Ministry of Plan Implementation, Forestry Department, Wild Life Department, Ministry of Labour and Samurdhi, etc
Dulan de Silva receives the award from Speaker Karu Jayasuriya
The most rewarding aspect of the award however is the recognition of the personal sacrifices he has made in the pursuit of his dream of poverty alleviation, firstly by joining Sarvodaya, spurning a lucrative offer by a multi-national bank in 1986, when he returned to the island with an MBA from Florida State University. Secondly, by joining the two Directors of Berendina in providing their homes as collateral for loans taken from commercial banks such as NDB, Commercial Bank, Sri Lanka Savings Bank, etc.
In order to enable Berendina to assist 40,000 more families than would have been possible with the funds provided as grants. Finally, he was recognised for leaving his position as Consultant to Berendina stichting and Chairman of Berendina Group, to start Give2Lanka (www.give2lanka.org) getting a small allowance for self to in furtherance of his vision to at least minimise, if not eradicate poverty in Sri Lanka. People of Sri Lanka can join his journey by contributing to a deserving cause supported by Give2Lanka.
