Manoji Wadugodapitiya, the chairperson of Hydro Power (Pvt) Ltd and Arusalana Eco Lodge Hotel is a well-renowned name in the business arena has taken this as a responsibility of hers to upgrade the living standard of less privileged women in Sri Lanka.
She attended the Flagship international convention in September 2019 in Bengaluru and received high recognition in the international arena as she is an asset to all women in need in Sri Lanka.
She believes that every single person has a born talent and a destiny in life and most of our lives revolve around these two facts. She has employed teachers who are well known to the trade of handwork industry. She started classes in the Kaduwela vicinity which was known to women in need as most of the women were housewives and had to depend on others for their daily living and their expenses.
She started a women’s organisation ‘Simply Women’ in the year 2016 to upgrade the less privileged living standard of women in Sri Lanka by training the women in handworks such as sewing, patchwork, embroidery, beauty culture, costume jewellery, slipper making and many more that could be trained to generate an additional income for the low-income families.
She sights that there is no one to give them a helping hand, they will be stranded with no hope to face life. Due to financial difficulties, they intend to use illegal ways to earn additional income. This has been a reality; more inmates are detained in the prison for all types of illegal activities.
She has started to train women in the prison which has been the talk of the town in the social work arena. The training is free of charge and provides with all the material required. She uses her financials and the help of her friends in the business circle.
‘Simply Women’, with more demand to train less privileged women has expanded the training classes to most parts of the Island such as Kaduwela, Malabe, Athurugiriya, Kolonnawa, Maharagama, Dehiwala, Awissawella and has trained more than 200,000 women in various trades.
She has separate classes for special need children and young women and she has also employed some to her women’s organization, Manoji Wadugodapitiya not only trains these women also gives them an additional helping hand by a way of financial support to buy the equipment need to start their own business and has gone a further mile to even get orders from renown companies. She has given some of these items to the prison mates who they had trained and the money has been deposited to their savings accounts opened by Simply Women.
Her vision is to see women trained by Simply Women start their self-employment which earns them a substantial income to enable them to support their families in all financial activities and to be recognized and respected women in Sri Lanka. manoji
