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Sunday Sep 29, 2024
Wednesday, 25 September 2013 00:17 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The reception took place at St James’s Palace and was part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Nimali, from Ambalantota, was the winner of the international ‘Start-up Entrepreneur of the Year 2013’ and officially received her award on 12 September at the Entrepreneur Awards Night. Hambantota District Chamber of Commerce (HDCC) CEO Krishanthi Weerasinghe accompanied Nimali to the event.
Nimali Gunawardana is a beneficiary of HDCC’s youth business program (HYBP), which is the Hambantota District program of Youth Business Sri Lanka (YBSL). She is the owner of a small-scale business – ‘Nimali Chips and Fibre Mill’ – in Ambalantota. At the ceremony Nimali was acknowledged as a pioneer businesswoman.
In less than a year from start-up, she was able to create an environmentally friendly enterprise producing and exporting coir for mattresses and coir piths, and a business making coconut husk chips, which is a new industry in Sri Lanka’s rural districts. The coir for mattresses is supplied to a Galle-based company which exports the coir to countries situated at high altitude. The coir piths and coir chips are sold to a company in Embilipitiya, which exports them to Germany, Canada and the UK where they are used in agriculture and to purify water respectively.
When she set out, Nimali – who comes from an impoverished background – was determined to overcome traditional cultural ideas about the role of women in Sri Lanka. However, a failed coir business venture and a lack of collateral meant that banks rejected her requests for a loan to help her set up Nimali Chips and Fibre Mill. With the help of YBSL’s Hambantota Program, Nimali’s new business has grown to employ 13 people and is looking to generate an annual turnover of more than $ 39,000. She is just 25 years old.
“The amount she has achieved within an 8-month period, and her dedication and sacrifice is inspirational. She has overcome many traditional and gender barriers, and she has grasped this business opportunity with both hands and run with it.”
Nimali got her start up loan and business training through the USAID-funded ‘Promoting Entrepreneurship and Empowering Women in the Hambantota District’ project, which was implemented by HDCC and which provided business start-up support to local women and capacity building programs for existing business women. Through this project HYBP disbursed 60 loans for women in the Hambantota District to start their own businesses.
The role of the mentor is a unique feature of this project and Nimali’s mentor is Gunawathie Hettiarachchi, Project Coordinator of Ruhunu Nadee Community based organisation, Ambalantota. She has been serving as her mentor since the inception of her business and her guidance and monitoring greatly helped to establish a successful business and to win an international award.
Nimali is one of those few women who started up a business from scratch in a rural area and she has been able to show that women can be successful in business without sacrificing their cultural identity.
