| At the first board meeting in July 2003 our governor elect Rtn Nihal Bogahalande mentioned that governor elect Rtn Lucky Pieris had told him that a remote village which is located about 6 miles from Galle has a number of unemployed people and the villagers had suggested that we help them to be self employed and they wish to manufacture candles.
The Rotary Club of Galle then set about organizing the Rotary Village Corp of Yaggaha whose President is the village Vedamahattaya.
Knowing absolutely nothing on candle manufacture we did some research & found that the Industrial Development Board in Moratuwa manufactures excellent quality stainless steel moulds, Five 40 cavity stainless steel moulds were ordered from the IDB, Moratuwa at a cost of Rs 45000/= and was received in January' 2004. lt should be mentioned that these moulds would last a lifetime if they are oiled and maintained. Ten villagers were selected to attend a one day training course |
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in candle manufacturing at the IDB, Moratuwa on the 11 th February 2004 . The secretary of the Galle Club Rtn Harischandra Kudachi attended this course together with the villagers and my factory engineers.
A heating barrel had to be made and this was successfully designed by the engineers at Trinity Packaging. Raw Materials such as paraffin, thread, stearate & packing materials were purchased for Rs, 30,000/-.
On the 26th of March together with Past President Janaka Edirisinghe we went to Yaggaha & donated the equipment & raw materials together with the members of the Galle Club.
The villagers welcomed us with a hearty traditional breakfast of Kiribath, Kokis and Kavum and then we had a welcome speech delivered by Rtn Harischandra of the Galle Club. The President of the Yaggaha village corp welcomed us next and the Vocational Service director and Past President Rtn Janaka Edirisnghe addressed the gathering. We received the blessings of the Buddhist clergy who chanted pirith.
We spent the next few hours demonstrating how the candles should be manufactured.
lam pleased to mention that at the time of writing this report the Yaggaha Village Corp has manufactured over ten thousand candles. A CD is enclosed that contains a power point presentation of the project.
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