Thursday, 28 November 2013 00:01
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Bank of Ceylon was awarded with ‘Best Sustainability Project Award’ under the ‘other’ category at the Best Corporate Citizen Sustainability Awards ceremony organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce held at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel on 26 November 2013.
BOC Mithuru is a strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project of the Bank of Ceylon which aims to empower the neediest segments in the society to become self-sufficient. BOC Mithuru has been designed on the vision of empowering the grassroots level of the Sri Lankan economy in order to reduce poverty.
Bank of Ceylon set up small BOC Mithuru groups island-wide and provided them with advisory services and financial assistance under the micro financing loan schemes. BOC’s strategic CSR project has been a catalyst in developing an entrepreneurial culture while inculcating the habit of savings among BOC Mithuru groups set up in the country. Today the bank has empowered 100,000 families covering all parts of the country including northern and eastern provinces as beneficiaries of BOC Mithuru. BOC pledges its continuous support towards reducing poverty in Sri Lanka.
Bank of Ceylon has considered providing sustainable solutions to all Sri Lankans, as one of its innate responsibilities. Therefore BOC grasped the principles of microfinance back in the 1980s and embedded the same into its Corporate Social Responsibility philosophy. The launching of ‘BOC Mithuru’, a branded package of its small group development project, is the culmination of all the endeavours BOC has undertaken throughout the years to empower people in low income groups and enhance the livelihoods of participants.
This is a project that is aimed at alleviating poverty through collaborative effort. It is designed to provide a structured facilitation for individuals in needy segments of the society, through forming groups with likeminded people, inculcating the habit of saving within the group, improving livelihood by facilitating financial assistance for their income generating activities. BOC Mithuru was developed based on the social bottom-line of the bank’s sustainability policy, which strives to achieve enhancement in entrepreneurship and livelihood development. Since the profits earned by development of income generating activities will be injected back to the bank in the form of deposits. BOC Mithuru proudly boasts of over 19,000 small groups functioning under 300 societies, dispersed across all nine provinces and benefiting 100,000 families in the country. It has also resulted in its members registering 160 of their societies with the Registrar of Companies.
