Brandix accelerates its ‘Model Village’ programme

Initiative helps communities in the neighbourhoods of its factories, covering 12 towns in 12 months

 The quality of life in a dozen towns and villages across Sri Lanka is looking up after the Brandix Group accelerated its ‘model village’ programme in 2016 to help communities around its factories with their water supply and sanitation needs.

The country’s top ranked exporter and the largest employer in the export sector, Brandix completed multiple projects at schools, hospitals, places of worship, police stations and a community centre during the year, committing more resources and time to a project that is at the heart of the Group’s community relations agenda.

Inspired by the temple, school and tank – centred village development concept of yore, the Brandix programme identifies and addresses water-related issues facing people resident within a five kilometre radius of the Group’s factories in its first phase, and thereafter extends its assistance to an area within a 10 kilometre radius of the factories to benefit more people in the programme’s second phase.

Communities helped in 2016 were those within five kilometres of the Brandix factories in Ekala, Katunayake, Seeduwa, Batticaloa, Kahawatte, Koggala, Rambukkana, Avissawella, Welisara, Ratmalana and Nittambuwa, and those within five to ten kilometres of the Brandix factory at Nivithigala.

The work involved the provision of water supply facilities to, or upgrading of existing water supply systems at 23 public institutions, the provision of both water supply and sanitation facilities to another 35 institutions and the construction or repair of sanitation facilities at 10 institutions, the Group said.

The beneficiaries were 46 schools, 13 temples, a mosque and a kovil, four hospitals, two police stations and a community centre.

“The simultaneous participation of 12 factories in our model village programme enabled us to reach out and help thousands of people in different parts of the country in the course of the year,” said Anusha Alles, Head of CSR and Corporate Communications of the Brandix Group. “Inadequate water supply and sanitation facilities continue to be a problem at many public institutions even in some urban and suburban areas, and we had to expand the programme to reach needy communities sooner rather than later.”

The Brandix Model Village programme focuses on assisting public institutions and communal locations by bringing communities together and building a sense of ownership that has lasting beneficial impacts. These projects enable the Group’s factories to play a role in the community, and become important contributors to the wellbeing of the people in their neighbourhoods. As a result, Brandix factories which are usually among the biggest employers in the beneficiary communities become an intrinsic part of the social fabric of the villages and towns assisted under the programme.

The first Brandix Model Village programme launched in 2015 benefitted residents of Polonnaruwa, while the second programme conducted in the same year covered communities in Nivithigala.