Abans has come a long way from the small store in Bambalapitiya where Mrs. Aban Pestonjee and her husband, Mr. Pesi Pestonjee first set up shop. Now, at its present size of 21 companies, Abans employs over 6000 staff and is continuously looking for fresh talent.

However, in our recruitment efforts, we have noticed the large dearth of English literacy, IT education and career guidance amongst our many young applicants. Abans' aim is to allow everyone to reach their fullest potential with access to the best education available. It is with this aim in mind that Abans has undertaken a CSR initiative both to enhance the potential of its own workforce and their families, but, also for the generations of Sri Lankans yet to join the workforce.

Abans' CSR initiative is a strategic project to increase the employability of Sri Lanka's future workforce. Being an employer in South Asia and a company originally founded by a woman, the staff at Abans are also passionate about women's empowerment through education. Educating future mothers means a more educated, healthier, driven workforce.

A dearth of IT and specialized skills education, and career guidance in Sri Lanka have been identified as the factors separating the "haves" from the "have-not's". Abans feels that this is exactly where our CSR efforts should be focused on.

We've kicked off our CSR initiatives by starting right in our very own homes - we have started a series of programs providing free IT education to our employees' children.

Moving on to benefit the rest of Sri Lanka - we've represented ourselves at the EDEX fair in January and provided a CV submission service where candidates were guaranteed call-backs and resume forwarding to not only Abans locations but also to the Sri Lankan Jobs search engine, Jobsnet.

CSR at Abans will not become a stagnant term - initiatives will continue to grow and serve the knowledge enhancement of future generations of Sri Lankans. The following photo gallery serves to illustrate our firm commitment to enhancing the landscape of Education for today's Sri Lankan generations and beyond.