HNB Yauwanabhimana – empowering the youth of Sri Lanka

The morning hours of 8 December, saw the dawn of a new chapter in the history of Sri Lankan youth with the launch of the first HNB youth empowerment program in Colombo, under the umbrella of HNB Yauwanabhimana.

HNB Yauwanabhimana, with the slogan “empowering the youth of Sri Lanka”, Youth Empowerment Program is the first of its kind in history was launched at HNB Towers on 1 December.

This program sees the participation and collaboration of many blue chip corporates   in the country such as CIC, Dialog, DIMO, Hayleys, Holcim and leading educational institutions like British Council, The University of Colombo and the World University Services Canada.

These corporations and institutions have joined hands with HNB in this endeavour to make youth more employable individuals expanding their horizons towards endless potential and opportunities that rest beyond formal education mediums. Employability and dignity of labour are key objectives of this program that sees the inclusion of young people between the ages of 18-30 years. HNB a bank with over 120 years of heritage and trust is proud to be in the forefront with an initiative of this nature to empower the youth of the nation.

The first youth empowerment program in Colombo saw over 140 young girls and boys attending the program from Colombo and Suburban areas with varying backgrounds, educational levels and ethnicities.  The program was enriched by the corporate partners giving introductions to the services they offer, what possibilities are there for youth in respective fields of corporate business, construction, telecommunication, agriculture, motor mechanism, English language skills development  the ways in which they can help youth in terms of knowledge sharing, technical know-how and assistance, commercial arrangements, industry best practice and emphasizing on becoming an employable youth than focusing solely on paper based qualifications. The program gave a chance for youth to have one to one contact with the top personnel of the top management and directors of the corporate partners.



Further, Kumar Dharmasena, Manager – Public Relations, Hatton National Bank joined in to share his success story of coming from a rural village to becoming a banker, getting selected to the Sri Lanka national Cricket team, winning the 1996 Wills World Cup, becoming an umpire and getting selected to be in the Elite umpire panel of the ICC.  A motivational speech by M Thilakasiri, Senior Consultant, Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration added value by encouraging youth to be confident, positive and to be able to present themselves to be recognized. A personal grooming session covering cleanliness, dressing, grooming, table etiquette, corporate wear to facing an interview too was conducted to enhance the knowledge and build awareness among youth by Nayana Karunaratne of Image Consultants, Academy of Personality Development. In addition, an entrepreneur development session coupled with financial literacy was also conducted helping youth better understand the qualities and identifying the market requirement to become an entrepreneur or self-employed individual by Nirupa Ratnayake. Further, importance and potential in National Vocational Qualification (NVQ), opportunities, and demand for qualified people was shared with the youth making them aware that paper based qualification is not the only means of becoming employable.

Feedback from the youth who attended the program was impressive. All participants endorsed the program as a valuable eye opener, expanded their horizons, giving them vital information plus something to take back and review over in making future decisions giving exposure to various disciplines and corporate entities that they otherwise wouldn’t have access to with ease.

HNB, your Partner in Progress, is proud and privileged to partner the young people of Sri Lanka as key stakeholders of future economic growth.

As rightly quoted by John W. Gardner, “Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.”

HNB is taking the lead in preparing these promising youth of Sri Lanka together with the corporate partners, to grow their own plants, which will one day make little oak nuts in to mighty oak trees. The synergies of the corporate partners and HNB will facilitate youth to sustain the economy and drive the nation forward for a prosperous future with HNB Yauwanabhimana.