Citi celebrates 12th annual Global Community Day in Sri Lanka

Saturday, 10 June 2017 00:14 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Citi celebrates its 12th annual Global Community Day, as more than 80 volunteers in Colombo join tens of thousands of colleagues, family and friends in more than 90 countries and territories to engage in service activities in their local communities.

In the days leading up to and including Global Community Day, Citi volunteers will participate in more than 1,500 service projects ranging from urban revitalisation to literacy and education, career readiness, environmental conservation and disaster relief.

Global Community Day offers a wide range of service opportunities to work alongside community and non-profit partners to help improve our cities and neighbourhoods. Many of the youth involved with the Citi Foundation’s Pathways to Progress initiative are participating and planning volunteer events across key cities globally.

Citi Country Officer Sri Lanka Ravin Basnayake said: “Citi is all about giving back to the societies we are a part of and realising the impact of our actions on the natural environment. Today we are proud to enable the progress of the green movement and improve the lives of the local community.”

In Asia Pacific, more than 36,000 Citi volunteers, alumni, clients, family and friends in 60 cities across 15 countries are working side-by-side on more than 260 service projects ranging from disaster relief to urban revitalisation, literacy and education, career readiness for youth, and environmental conservation.

Thousands of lives will be touched as a result of the planned service projects, some of which include: In Sri Lanka, more than 80 volunteers together with gudppl a new Social Network for people and organisations to find volunteer opportunities will visit Wester Seaton Cheshire Home in Negombo.

The home for the differently-abled is a Global Alliance of Leonard Cheshire charities which works to improve the lives of disabled people in 54 countries. The home presently caters to the needs of thirty residents.

The theme of this year’s initiative is to commence an organic vegetable farming unit as a means of self-sustenance and livelihood. By helping generate an organic farm, creating the environment and necessary model to commence organic farming we hope to not only uplift the lives of these differently-abled people but afford them an opportunity to come closer to nature and the environment and showcase that disabilities can be turned around to abilities that can generate income as well. The model would inspire and promote similar projects elsewhere in Sri Lanka as well.

Please join the Global Community Day conversation on social media using the hashtag #CitiVolunteers.

To learn more about Citi’s citizenship efforts across the globe and to review the 2016 Global Citizenship

Report, visit http://citizenship.citigroup.com.