Volunteer Recognition Day 2019 was held on 27th June at the Earls Court at Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo.
Most projects carried out by John Keells Foundation, function with the support of staff volunteers and the financial year 2018/19 was no exception. The Group’s volunteer network enables employees to go beyond their day-to-day work and make a hands-on contribution to the community and environment development while the volunteer leave policy facilitates the release of staff for CSR activities with minimum restraint.
During 2018/19, 786 staff volunteers engaged in projects undertaken by the Foundation recording 1287 volunteer instances accounting for 4652 hours, excluding CSR initiatives organized at a sector or business level. Chairperson, Krishan Balendra in his address, thanked all the volunteers for their contribution towards maintaining JKH as a responsible corporate citizen.
Volunteers vary from project champions, trainers and trained assistants to those who engage in skill-based volunteerism and administrative support. Every year volunteers are recognized for their commitment and contribution with ‘Platinum’, ‘Gold’, ‘Silver’, ‘Bronze’ or `Merit’ ratings based on the Foundation’s Volunteer Rating Mechanism with the high performers being awarded at the annual Volunteer Recognition Day.
The 3 Platinum Award Winners were:
- Ivan Perera – Security Manager at Habarana Lodge by Cinnamon: Ivan is an HIV Master Trainer who volunteered 36 hours of his time towards conducting 13 awareness sessions on HIV & AIDS at Army Training schools. He’s also assumed responsibility for not only conducting the awareness sessions but overall coordination of the sessions.
- Abhishek Perera – Process Associate at InfoMate: A passionate volunteer who engaged in over 15 instances covering a range of projects such as Vision, Project WAVE, No Kunu, Kala Pola, Soft Skills, Plastic Cycle, and location-based CSR and Neighbourhood Schools by putting in a total of 89.5 hours of volunteerism.
- Damith Perera – Team Lead in Foreign Operations at InfoMate: A hard-working individual who volunteered 99 hours towards CSR related projects. He has also volunteered in initiatives under Vision, Kala Pola, No Kunu, Neighbourhood Schools and Project WAVE; recording a total of 29 volunteer instances.
The Foundation also took the opportunity to pay tribute at this gathering to Ms. Dilani Alagaratnam, who has been the President for CSR since August 2014 and is due to retire at the end of the year and also present her with a token of appreciation.