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Virtusa supports fifty rural schools

Virtusa Corporation (NASDAQ: VRTU), facilitated setting up IT laboratories for fifty rural schools in the Uva province partnering as a part of Virtusa’s CSR initiative “Digital Reach”.

The program is carried out in partnership with Uva Wellassa University.

The grand scale project is aligned with Virtusa’s sustainable strategic plan and the Uva Wellassa social responsibility program. The goal was to empower communities by creating avenues that strengthen capabilities in education and employment through access to information and communication technology (ICT). This enables societies to improve standards of living.

The company provides schools with computer laboratories as well as text books and material. General Manager, Sri Lanka, Madu Ratnayake said, “Access to computers and ICT in general has a tremendous potential to empower rural youth to become an active participants in the global knowledge society.

We are delighted to be able make a contribution towards empowering rural Sri Lankan youth with ICT. With the strong support from Uva Wellassa University, we hope that this initiative will open up doors for many students now and years to come.”

Vice Chancellor of the Uva Wellassa University, Chandra Embuldeniya said “This is an impressive social responsibility act on part of Virtusa and the Uva Wellassa University. Uva is a province where the majority of the families are living in impoverished conditions. The project is an opportunity to enrich our community to experience IT education by providing access to higher educational paths.

We have looked into the sustainability of the project in selecting the correct schools, in terms of school infrastructure, resources and security.

And we are armed with a committed set of lecturers and IT students.

The Uva Education authority extended their cooperation to make this program by selecting the broad category of schools and communicating with them.

The University identified the schools where labs will be installed based on the merits of their proposals submitted to the University.”

Initially the schools will be mentored by one hundred IT students, two for each school, giving necessary instruction to teachers and the students.

The knowledge of teachers in the fifty schools will be developed through skill and technical assistance by the Uva Wellassa IT students.

DFCC introduces ‘six S’

The team from DFCC Bank was welcomed by the students of the Sri Jayawardenapura Maha Vidyalaya, Kotte.

DFCC and Vardhana Bank in association with the Ministry of Education has launched a program to empower children through inculcating the habit of responsibility of community and environmental stewardship and help them take their first steps towards becoming productive and effective citizens.

The program titled “Towards an exemplary society”, will focus on educating and training teachers,parents and primary school pupils from selected schools across Sri Lanka on the theoretical and practical application of the six concept and the 3R principles (Reuse, Recycle and Reduce) on environmental stewardship.