Page 46 - Hemas_Piyawara_Book

As a stunned Sri Lanka attempted to get its bearings, the very next day on December The tsunami pathway
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27 , the Chairman of the Hemas Group, Husein Esufally, and the Board of Directors
summoned a hurried meeting to brainstorm how as a leading company it could lend a
much-needed hand in the face of this natural disaster, the country’s worst in recorded
history.
In subdued discussions, the Hemas Group decided on a 2-way strategy – for its Human
Resources (HR) Division to ensure the welfare and well-being of its own employees
and business partners and for the team dealing with corporate social responsibility
(CSR) to support the wider community.

The short-term plan was to dispatch immediate assistance in the form of consumer
goods to the value of US$ 30,000 and pharmaceuticals to the value of US$ 78,000, which
the Hemas Group did on December 28 , 30 and 31 respectively.
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It was also around this time that the President’s Office called the Hemas Group, seeking
support for the tsunami survivors. As the Hemas Group was already engaged with
children through Piyawara in the national Early Childhood Care and Development
(ECCD) programme, it readily agreed to look at the needs in this sphere. This had
drawn commendation as nobody had given much thought to very young children
under 5 years of age, a vital segment of society. There followed a short and long-term Sri Lanka's tsunami-hit districts
plan to focus on preschools. Numbers of Displaced Persons

With the necessity for a mechanism within the Hemas Group to respond to the Jaffna
challenges the tsunami had thrown up becoming obvious, the CSR team had sat down Kilinochchi
Mullaitivu
with officials of the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs under Minister Sumedha G.
Jayasena, to develop the concept note. Mannar Vavuniya

The discussions focused on the urgent needs the promptly-established ‘Hemas
Trincomalee
Tsunami Foundation’ would look into and undertake to fulfil. The immediate need Anuradhapura
was information from the tsunami-ravaged areas – the collection of data followed by Puttalam Polonnaruwa
the setting up of temporary preschools within the largest welfare camps so that the Batticaloa
Kurunegala Matale
traumatized little ones could take their minds off the terrible plight they were in.
Kandy
Ampara
To fulfil that need, preschool teachers from within the same camps had to be trained Gampaha Kegalle
Nuwara Eliya
Badulla
to handle the children, while also securing the services of others including parents Colombo Moneragala
in those camps to contribute their energy to construct and maintain the preschool Kalutara Ratnapura
buildings, giving them a sense of belonging in return.
Galle Hambantota
Matara

38 Hemas Piyawara - A Journey to the Future