PC House Reaches out to flood victims in Anuradhapura

PC House a prominent player in the local ICT industry since 1997 proves once again that it is not always about making profit, but also about making a difference. In their latest CSR effort, the primary aim was to bring life back to normality for the students of Anuradhapura Nabadawewa Maha Vidyalaya an isolated school 25 kms from the nearest town of Horowpothana which is 45 km from Anuradhapura.

The school which is an essential source of education for students from Grade 1-9, suffered greatly during the recent floods and was submerged for five days causing a great deal of damage to the property and destroying many of the school’s books and other stationery items. In addition to this many students and teachers in the school lost essential resources as even the village was under water for almost five days forcing students to resort to desperate means to bring the school back to an operational level.

Identifying the needs of the school PCH offered its assistance by supplying essential stationary and equipment to the students and the school as well. With the logistical assistance of the Disaster Management Centre of Anuradhapura, PCH supplied comprehensive stationary packs to students, inclusive of books, instrument boxes, stationary items, pencil cases as well as a school bag, water bottle and lunch box making each gift pack worth over Rs. 2,000. The uniqueness of this project is that PCH employees played a leading role by voluntarily contributing one day’s pay which the company then matched 1:1 allowing a large contribution. In addition PCH also donated the school with 2 top end computers and a multifunctional printer with copying and scanning functionality together with speakers, LCD displays and UPS units allowing the school not just to return to normality but also to broaden their horizons in sharpening the minds that will grow to contribute to our nation.

Commenting on the work done the Principal of the school Mr. K. Jayawardena stated, “Nabadawewa Maha Vidyalaya being an isolated school has faced many challenges over the years and our community and staff have always sought to overcome as best as we can for the sake of our students. The floods posed a great challenge to us not just as it prevented the use of the school for many weeks but also as it damaged and destroyed text books and other resources upon which the school depended heavily. In addition to this many of our students had lost their books and stationary to the rising waters and were struggling a great deal to continue with their studies. It was at this time that PCH offered their aid and provided our school and students with essential items that not only provided our students with the equipment they needed but also helped us develop our resources to a point where we can offer an IT training to our students for the first time and offer them new insight into this field.”

Head of Marketing at PCH Mr. Rizwan Anise commented, “Our aim has always been to be a socially acceptable company with a vision for the future. It was a pleasure to see the effects of our project on the lives of the students and school, but it was even more impressive to see our staff contribution and sacrifice towards the project applying their skills and abilities to aid those in need.”

The head of HR at PCH Mr. Jude Fernando, also stated, “It truly was impressive seeing all the sectors and divisions of this company come together on this project working seamlessly as they always do, with the goal of helping others.”

PCH is the new corporate brand identity for PC House PLC which was recently listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange. The new brand identity reflects the change from a family owned business to a public company with a vision to be the benchmark for ICT in Sri Lanka.

PC House was incorporated as a limited liability company in the year 2000, after having commenced business in 1997 and became PCH PLC. Its Board of Directors consists of Messrs S.H.M. Rishan, Mangala Boyagoda, Sarath Wikramanayake, Modarage Thilakasiri, Shanti Kumar Nadarajah, Kuvera de Zoysa and Mrs. Sharmila Rishan.

Photo caption: (Top) Students working on their new computers from PCH. Mr. Thufail Musadeen, Head of Retail and Regional Business Operations, PCH in the background and (bottom) Students with their stationery packs from PCH.