YBPW empowering Sri Lankan women

Sanjeevi JAYASURIYA

The young business and professional women in Sri Lanka will be working towards helping women to help themselves to enable better social and economic contribution to the country.

"The Young Business and Professional Women Sri Lanka (YBPW) is an Association that empowers youth to come up in life. We also have launched a programme named "Change" to help needy mothers. This initiative supports mothers in sending their children to school where there is an increasing trend in school-dropouts, YBPW Executive Committee President Gowri Kariyawasam told Daily News Business.

"We have selected 2,000 children from grade 1 to 5 at the Boralugoda Vidyalaya to provide free meals to encourage them to continue schooling. As the Association has identified that most of the children do not follow healthy consumption patterns, this measure is a motivation for these children to go to school every day, she said.

The Association conducts educational programmes for the women to provide comprehensive knowledge on how to manage the home-front and run families smoothly.

It also conducts programmes for professional women regarding investment, wellness and business etiquette to raise funds for the "Change" project. It organized several programmes last year including speed networking, service excellence, relationship marketing and motivation, wine tasting, business etiquette, leadership and Thai cookery demonstration.

The YBPW Sri Lanka was founded in November 2009 as a non-profit non ethnic and non religious organization with the aim to encourage women to take on a more active role in the economic, civil and political spheres in the country.

The Association is affiliated to Young Business and Professional Women International and is committed to empower members to achieve their full potential inside and outside their workplace.