In a historic first ever partnership between Rotary District 3220, The local partner for Care International affiliate in Sri Lanka Chrysalis, SLSI together with Rotaract Digital Experts embarked on a novel SME livelihood development project in the UVA Province on the area of Exports and Tourism. The MOU was signed between the two organizations recently under the leadership of Past Rotary International President K.R Ravindran.
The project has identified 7 SME’s in the UVA region in Industry and they will be certified by the Sri Lanka Standards Institute( SLSI) for Covid -19 control environment certification. There after the Rotaract Club of Colombo West and Uvawellassa will develop the digital marketing campaign targeting the local and export market.
The project will then expand to the Tourism sector covering 12 hotels in the Uva province where internaries for 2,3 and 5 days will be developed by the Rotaractors and linked to the 12 hotels so that the region will be developed for domestic tourism. Once again the certification for Covid-19 Cover will be done by SLSI in partnership with Chrysalis said Ashika Gunesena the CEO of Chrysalis. We are very excited about the total value chain development as it will help the country in the thrust to a V shape recovery commented the District Governor Rotary Ajith Weerasinghe.
Based on the test project of 7 SME’s we will extend the Programme to all 500 SME’s that we currently support in the Programme already in Sri Lanka voiced the determined Ashika Gunesena the CEO of Chrysalis.The internaries that we will develop in the tourism project the iternaries will sketch out with the Tourism Organizations and the different stakeholders of the area, so that we build the overall sector and related industries rather than just one entity said the District Rotaract Representative Kasun Segera.
To support the project Jayomi Lokuliyana was appointed to be the mentor for the digital Programme for the two Rotaract Clubs. Jayomi, was the only Sri Lankan entrepreneur to be given this title by Campaign Asia for 2020. She has been building Sri Lanka’s first Programmatic ecosystem- Adstudio. Jayomi was appointed by the Sri Lankan Chamber of Commerce to its working committee consulting for policy-level intervention for digital communication.
The Director Stop the Spread Dr Rohantha Athukorala said that this project in Livelihood development space is only the start of Rotary supporting the economic development agenda of the country.