WiLAT Sri Lanka celebrates fourth anniversary of Ignite mentoring program

Women in Logistics and Transport (WiLAT) Sri Lanka celebrated the fourth anniversary of its flagship mentoring program Ignite on 16 November at The Kingsbury Hotel, Colombo. 

Ignite is a planned mentoring program where both mentors and mentees are selected after careful evaluation. This year 11 mentors from the logistics, transport and supply chain industry in both the corporate and academic fields pledged their support to mentor 25 young undergraduates who were inducted into the 2017 mentoring program. 

Gayani De Alwis, the Advisor and Co-Founder of WiLAT Sri Lanka and the Vice Chairperson of CILT Sri Lanka, in her welcome address enlightened the audience on the objective of Ignite. 

“Ignite was launched with the initiative of developing and supporting young professionals and undergraduates to harness their talents by providing learning and development opportunities,” she stated. Vice President CS and HRM at Lanka Century Investments Plc Major General Channa Goonetilleke was the Chief Guest for the event. Major General Goonetilleke spoke on how important mentoring can be and related his military experience in how they have coached and mentored military personnel at all stages of their lives.

The keynote speaker for the event was CBL Foods International Ltd. Director/CEO Samitha Perera. Perera focused on the supply chain industry and how mentoring becomes a key ingredient in connecting everyone together. His speech was followed by a very impactful video on the relationship of a mentor and mentee and how a mentor could support his or her mentee to reach greater heights.   

The keynote speech was followed by a panel discussion and a Q&A session moderated by De Alwis. This was an interactive session, which gave the audience insight into the essence of mentoring and how to carry out an effective professional mentor-mentee relationship and make use of the valuable experiences and skills of one’s own mentor. 

The audience was then entertained by a Bharatha dance performance. All mentors and mentees were then invited to light the official Ignite oil lamp and pledge their commitment to this initiative. Ignite has received global recognition since its launch in 2014 and this year at the CILT International Convention held in Macau, WiLAT Sri Lanka’s Ignite program won the poster competition at the Global Convention. To conclude the day’s proceedings, Shakkya Perera from Ocean University, who was the scholarship winner at Ignite 2016, shared her mentoring experience and her international exposure at the CILT Global Convention held in Macau in June 2017. 

Ignite has been providing countless opportunities to young undergraduates and professionals and WiLAT urges all mentees inducted this year to make use of all available opportunities. WiLAT Sri Lanka is the women’s body of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Sri Lanka and has been growing from strength to strength ever since its formation in 2013.