Happy Village
Empowering our community for a sustainable future
HAPPY VILLAGE
Hotel with the Heart
By choosing to stay at The Glenrock, you’re directly supporting a movement of positive change. Instead of one-time donations, we invest in lasting impact: sustainable income, education, and environmental care that keep our village thriving and rooted.
impact
Village Contribution
The Glenrock village, unlike most other localities, does not add a burden to the national economy that is already laden with heavy foreign debt, but more importantly, helps the country pay off the foreign debt by channeling foreign currency to the national economy by converting natural strengths of the village to dollars through the Glenrock.
Glenrock has been contributing to the above cause through the following measures.
- Many who used to work in the city are currently employed at Glenrock (62% of the staff walk to work from home, while 74 % of the staff are from the immediate village or the surrounding villages of the Balangoda electorate). This allows some of them to do part-time farming while working full-time at the hotel, thus increasing their saving potential.
- Opportunities are granted to village youth at the hotel to develop skills and become tradespersons.
- Organizing organic farming workshops to encourage the practice amongst villagers.
- Road development projects sponsored by the hotel.
- Preserving the culture and facilitating the spiritual needs of the villager. Eg. Facilitating the purchasing of traditional drums for the village drummer boys; allowing them to display their skills at the hotel and outside cultural activities for a fee. Building a place of worship (a statue of God Saman, the revered guardian god of the province) and assisting the places of worship in the area through donations and assistance in construction.
- Assisting the school to improve their standards and giving students dictionaries and books and other stationery items.
- Providing aid to individuals in hardship such as conducting eye clinics, donating eyeglasses, and wheelchairs, and assisting in times of sorrow (funerals, etc)
- Encouraging farmers to sell their crops to the hotel at the retail selling price (Cutting the middleman to give more saving power)
- Preserving and protecting nature by planting trees in the hotel premises and the vicinity – the hotel plants two trees for each tree they use for the hotel’s construction needs.
CHALLENGES
Storms We’ve Weathered
The above contributions have been made by Glenrock despite operating with monetary losses so far. The remote location and the operational model (such as not allowing party revelers, noisy day-out guests, making the restaurant and the bar exclusive for the in-house guests, etc.) have thus thrown many a financial and logistical challenge. Since too many guests could disturb the villagers’ peaceful lifestyle and also could affect the nature lover guest’s value expectation of a peaceful holiday, the hotel has purposely limited itself to only ten rooms. The hotel has not so far even reached the breakeven point as a business venture as increasing occupancy levels is harder compared to a conventional hotel due to the above-said self-imposed limitations. However, Glenrock is challenging this challenge without compromising the values on which it is founded, operated, and promoted. The hotel would do its best to disprove the saying ‘ Road to hell is paved with good intentions’. Upon anticipated reaching the profit levels in the next few years, Glenrock, the unique social enterprise model would implement the above measures to sustain the happy village, by funding them as follows.
Ulugalathenna, the village around the glenrock is home to mostly farming families who are showered with the simple luxury of unpolluted air, comfortable temperatures, pure water, and fresh farm produce. With no rent, mortgage, lease, or high utility bill payments in the equation, and with a Buddhist-influenced simple middle-path lifestyle, money-making pressure to meet the demands of a materialistic lifestyle is minimal for them. If the words ‘Santhushtin paraman dhanan’ (Happiness is the ultimate wealth) of Gautama Buddha is the yardstick, they are among the wealthiest in the world.
Environmental & Social Enrichment
Enrich All
The guest is the key contributor to the change they contribute toward through the glenrock. From beaches to the mountains and wildlife, from culture and wellness within shorter travel, Sri Lanka is probably the greatest value package no other country can offer to the world traveler. glenrock promotes a tourism model for such small wonders, where give value and get value is even for all; the guest, the people, the country, and the ownership. For the owner who is a village-born Sri Lankan Canadian professional, the glenrock is a homegrown economic model envisioned and enlivened through ‘Happy Village’, the proof of the bigger concept for his land of birth, ‘janmabhoomi’.
PROVIM CARE
A Hand When It’s Needed Most
Mainstay in our Sri Lankan traditional meal has been carbohydrates (starchy and sugary food) as we used to be highly physically active in the past. With physical activities becoming less even among children, our usual carbohydrate intake poses a serious threat to health and well-being as unburnt carbohydrates (due to fewer physical activities) cause overweight, obesity, and diabetes.
At the same time, while nobody dies in starvation in Sri Lanka( due to the abundance of carb-rich food), lack of protein in the diet slowly bleeds the nation as it has unleashed a dangerous domino effect it has a direct impact on intelligence, memory power, physical growth, physical strength, mental health, and immunity.
However, protein-rich food such as meat, fish, legumes, and eggs are a luxury as they are out of the buying power of the majority. In addressing this situation at the village level, Glenrock through its Janmabhoomi Foundation has launched a program called ‘ProViM CARE’ (Protein, Vitamins, Minerals). As part of it, we have reared and distributed village chicken breeds among the willing staff and also the villagers. Old Sri Lankan households used to raise village chickens and therefore it has our traditional roots also children have found new pets through this project too.
Even the glenrock rears chicken (village breed) at the resort site. We strive to provide our valued guests, our staff, and the villagers such better nutritious eggs, through this program, while being environmentally friendly.