Mr. Shyam Bohra (MD, Lanka IOC) warmly welcomes Mr. Chandima Weerakkody Honorable Minister for Petroleum Resources Development and Mr. Faiszer Musthapha Honorable Minister of Local Government and Provincial Councils to the Lanka IOC “English for Young Learners” certificate awarding ceremony.

Mr. Chandima Weerakkody Honorable Minister for Petroleum Resources Development and Mr. Faiszer Musthapha Honorable Minister of Local Government and Provincial Councils in presence of Mr. Shyam Bohra MD Lanka IOC and other Lanka IOC officials participated in the concluding ceremony of the highly successful “English for Young Learners” project. This project was held in collaboration with Faizer Muszthapha Foundation and Cosmopolitan Learning Academy at the Tower hall Theatre Maradana recently. The program was a huge Success.

Lanka IOC initiated English classes for underprivileged children in collaboration with selected school authorities, the Cosmopolitan Learning Academy and the Faizer Muszthapha Foundation, a non-profit organisation formed by Honorable Minister Faiszer Musthapha. The Foundation’s involvement is in identifying suitable schools, while the schools Principals identify suitable children and ensures that children maintain a 100% attendance rate at the classes. The Cosmopolitan Learning Academy provides specially trained English teachers to conduct the classes. Lanka IOC funds the teachers and provides all learning materials for the children including text books, stationary and school bags. During the current financial year about 1,500 children between the ages of 6 to 15 years from underprivileged localities in the Colombo District attended the 6 to 8 month English training program which was concluded with a huge Success.

The Company acknowledging its responsibility towards the society and has in addition conducted several Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives under its theme ‘WE CARE’ In addition to a series of welfare programs including assistance for elders’ homes, renovation of healthcare centre, donation of ambulances, wheelchairs, and free health camps at diverse locations in Sri Lanka.

Lanka IOC believes that education can alleviate poverty. English education is rapidly becoming important for employment and higher education in Sri Lanka. However, English teaching facilities, particularly in public schools located in underserved communities, are limited. Therefore, children from such communities face a disadvantage in accessing English education.

Mr. Shyam Bohra (MD, Lanka IOC), addressing the gathering during the Award Ceremony.

“MD Lanka IOC; Mr. Shyam Bohra in his statement conveyed that “We believe that the children here today are the leaders of tomorrow and as a good corporate citizen, it is our responsibility to do our best to produce good, educated citizens so as to enhance the development of the country. English is spoken widely in the world and the best way to empower these children is to teach them the skills of the English language in a methodical manner. The happiness we have got from these projects can never be measured in monetary terms. Our reward is the deep seated satisfaction we get by seeing these children excel in competitions, present themselves and perform with great confidence and ease, all in the English language.”

Through an ongoing initiative in teaching English to children from under-privileged communities, Lanka IOC, Faiszer Mustapha Foundation and Cosmopolitan Learning Academy launched ‘English for Young Learners’ six month programme for 1500 students from 15 chosen Dhamma or Sunday Schools from the Colombo District under the patronage of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Following the success of the programme last year at Trincomalee, Minister Faiszer Mustapha, who instigated the Foundation with the sole focus of alleviating the social setback that todays’ students tend to face when learning and conversing in English.

Lanka IOC had undertaken this project as their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and have realized that projects of this caliber are focused towards providing education to a child from a poor background would help in the child’s upliftment for a better future.

“Lanka IOC and the Faiszer Mustapha Foundation had been working together on bringing about this concept for Dhamma Schools in the Colombo District.

Today, with the ongoing global changes and advancements, this strategy for companies to embrace CSR is meaningful and through this concept, we will work to provide youth with the chance to be able to learn English and benefit from it,” Chairman, Faiszer Mustapha Foundation, Minister Faiszer Mustapha said.

After the programme in Trincomalee, the Foundation noticed that this change should be brought upon to the Colombo District as well, especially after ruling out the plight of English language results from lesser known schools in the district.

To bridge this gap between learning the language as a subject at school, needed to be filled.

All four skills; reading, writing, speaking and listening would be taught during the six months. “This is not just an average English teaching programme. The focus would be laid out on English language to be taught as a language. This is an unconventional, well-programmed study scheme conducted by the Cosmopolitan Learning Centre.

“We had already been in Jaffna, in collaboration with Lanka IOC. This concept includes quite an interactive approach to teaching and we do not utilize the conservative way of school teaching. The concept is Cosmopolitans own developed, tried and tested teaching method. We engage in special training for our teachers I the right teaching technique to be used for this programme,” Thilak Silva of Cosmopolitan Learning Centre said.

35 teachers from the Colombo District have already been assigned for this programme. Whilst learning at Dhamma Schools, the programme had been set up to be followed as an additional class. “My aim is to diminish that gap seen between the English and the Non-English classes in schools around the country. English is a very much needed tool in todays’ growing world,” Minister Mustapha acknowledged.

Students will be allocated to segmented classes after undergoing a test that would mark them depending on their English knowledge and ability.

IOC sees this opportunity on a long term outlook and pledged their continuous support in bringing change to help in the education of children in the country.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa was the Chief Guest at the event.