The unique CSR initiative of Dipped Products PLC’s ‘First Light’ won the Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship award at the recently concluded AREA awards in Singapore. This was in the Investing in People category.
“The meaning of First Light is actually created to honour our rubber farmers who form the first link in the supply chain who have to wake up at the first light of the day and use their hands to tap the rubber which then goes through a long chain of value addition making a massive contribution to the Sri Lankan economy,” said Dr. Mahesha Ranasoma, Managing Director of Dipped Products
“Dipped Products is a manufacturer of latex based rubber gloves and with manufacturing facilities both in Sri Lanka and in Thailand. We have been successful in marketing our gloves now reaching 70 countries and as a Sri Lankan company, we all can be proud of this achieving such a significant global footprint.”
“At present, we have more than 3,000 small holder rubber farmer connected with us contributing daily to our efforts of making value added export products and it is this responsibility that led us to crafting the First Light small holder rubber farmer project in 2007 as our core CSR project.”
“We also wanted to create this project starting from the most difficult area and hence selected Moneragala to anchor the initiative.”
“Our key aims of the this project were to support the small holder rubber farmer community with productivity tools, training, capacity building in their villages, providing insurance, ensuring fair pricing and follow the principles of fair trade, ethical sourcing and sustainability practices.”
“We also aimed at co-ownership of this project by the farmer community hand in hand with DPL,” he said.
The project started with 4 farmers in 2007. By 2008, the farmer base increased to 148 who accounted for 12% of the field latex supply to DPL. By 2016, the farmer base had grown more than 10 fold to 1,620 and their contribution to DPL’s field latex requirement had grown to more than 45% of the total requirement.
“These statistics clearly demonstrate the acceptance of the First Light project by the smallholder farmer and its sustainability,” he added.
AREA, is Asia’s leading large scale and regional CSR programs, organized by Enterprise Asia, which saw over 300 CSR thought leaders, doers and practitioners from across Asia attending.
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