LEISURE

Since the launch of its successful pilot in 2008/09, Cinnamon Lodge, Habarana continues with the Compost Project, selling packs of compost to its visitors and guests, as well as those of the neighboring ChaayaVillage, Habarana. Through a commercial arrangement brokered by the Foundation, Cinnamon Lodge also supplies compost packs for retailing through some of the Keells Super outlets towards enabling easy access of compost to the customers of the supermarket chain.Whilst the hotel itself uses the compost to produce organic herbs and vegetables, it has also started providing compost by tonnes and by tractor loads to certain buyers, thereby reducing the usage of inorganic fertilizers in gardens and farms. Sold in attractive packaging and at a relatively negligible cost, the compost is made up of the garden waste collected from the two Keells hotels in Habarana, along with farmyard manure.

Whittall Boustead (Travel) Limited, a subsidiary of John Keells Holdings and an Inbound Tour Operator company, has been sponsoring the school requirements of the students of Sidhuhath Vidyalaya in Gallala, Ratnapura every year since 2001. All Government schools in Sri Lanka provide free education to the students including text books and one free uniform. However the students are required to purchase exercise books and all other stationery items which most children from rural areas find difficult to fund. The staff, tour leaders and suppliers of WBTL with its principals Kuoni and their staff have voluntarily contributed to the purchase of the year’s stationery requirements of all the students of this disadvantaged school which has classes up to Ordinary Level (numbering just over 200), including the provision of shoes and an extra uniform for some children who could not afford it.