Navomi Sandalanka emerged the winner in the Fair and Lovely’s reality competition targeting both urban and rural Sri Lankan women who are struggling to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Sumedha Weerasekera and Sanduni Udara were the first and second runners-up.
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| First runner-up Sumedha Weerasekera and second runner-up Sanduni Udara |
Hailing from different backgrounds, all ten finalists had diverse dreams from running their own salons to a motorcycle garage– but they all had one passion in common - to make their dreams a reality. For 13 weeks the contestants lived together in one house and participated in weekly entrepreneur oriented challenges where their skills and practical working knowledge were put to test.
The competition was aired weekly on DeranaTV - every Saturday at 7p.m., where at the end of each week, a contestant was eliminated by the general public by sending their votes via SMS.
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| The winner: Navomi Sandalanka |
The final challenge saw the three contestants standing on the outskirts of a paddy field where they were briefed by the main host Nalaka Hewamadduma.
Given ten kilos of rice and Rs. 30,000 each, Navomi, Sanduni and Sumedha had to individually lead their teams to use their creativity and innovativeness to develop and market products made from the rice.
The winner Navomi, a 27-year-old from Kadawatha, is currently carrying out her own mushroom cultivation project. “I completed my A/L’s in Agricultural Science and since I did not have the opportunity to enter university, I decided to start my own business by cultivating mushrooms.
“I run a small scale operation and decided to enrol for this competition and compete for the one million rupees which was on offer – which will no doubt enable me to acquire the new technologies I need .
“ I’m grateful to Unilever Sri Lanka and Fair & Lovely for giving us opportunities such as this to fulfil our dreams and improve our lives,” an elated Navomi said. |
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