Chandi Aluwihare has come a long way since coming into the top ten at the Mrs. International pageant in 2016. She was recognized with the ‘Silpathom’ medal in Bangkok. for her war against child prostitution. A beauty queen with beauty and brains, she is highly involved working for the unheard voice of innocent children. Recognised as the global goodwill ambassador, she has a vociferous voice to make a positive impact in society ensuring social justice, social equity and human dignity. For those who have no parents, street children, war victims, and abused kids. “My focus is to protect the love and care of underprivilged chidren. A woman with courage, strength and commitment, Chandi Aluwihare believes in the axiom ‘Beauty is not skin deep’

by Zanita Careem

An introduction to your career

To say the least, at my younger days, I was floating between what I want and what I have. Like many college students I was utterly confused on what I want in life. This made me experiment in many different fields. Fashion, management, customer relation, travel and tourism, hospitality and service, publication were few. I don’t think I will ever be satisfied with what I do, as challengers excites me and if what I do is not challenging enough I am unable to remain interested. This put me in the threshold of the next paradigm of my career, to explore and execute new ideas that are ‘business disrupters’ to find that space to leverage my diverse yet interlocked experiences.

Your emowering single mothers is a very touching concept when did yous tart and why?

We all know that extreme poverty and lack of opportunities or of serious underlining problems, women are driven to the very edge of humane existence. The QUESTION is what is the future of their children?

I was passionate about empowering children, and spent many years with less privileged children, abused children, young mothers’ etc. one thing I learnt through my involvement with children was, that most of them came from broken families and the sole breadwinner is either the mother or it is a family with a single mother. On top of that the impact of financial hardship has a strong impact on psychological wellbeing of them as well as the children.

Being a mother myself, I can very well relate to the difficulties of being a single mother. This in fact was the reason I decided to find ways to strengthen their income sources, their abilities, their mindset, and last but not least their personality to stand on their own.

At this tragic moment where women are thrown out of employment sometimes they are the sole the bread winners. They juggle betweenhome and work. How can we overcome these problems?

This has being a social distress throughout that has no permanent solution. Unemployment with dependents can lead to isolation, anxiety, depression, paranoia, and even suicidal thoughts. When a woman become the primary financial provider, they feel the financial pressure in an undermining husband’s masculinity and in deepening conflicts between employment and mothering.

Having said that, the COVID-19 pandemic has a major threat to the working women. Social distancing, lockdowns sent unemployment rates skyrocketing and millions of jobs disappearing, economy is especially hard on working mothers. COVID-19 massive disruption to employment, childcare, and school routine has crippled the economy and pushed millions of women and families to the financial brink.

This moment provides an important opening to rethink how policy supports women’s roles as financial providers and parents.

Solutions should do more than provide temporary support to working mothers. While the role of women in our economy has shifted over the last 100 years, our systems have not similarly support them. The solutions should not exclusively focus on short term recovery, but long-lasting changes aim to close the wage gap, improve working conditions and family level options, better childcare system to the needs of the working mothers.

However, temporary fixes such as make work more accessible to woman, fund predictable work scheduling, guaranteed number of work hours, extended school-day or after school programs etc.

Your mode of success and your own moment

‘Success’ is a very powerful word, many of us. run behind it, most of us want to conquer it. While this is true, success includes all kinds of wealth.

For me, success is much more than the richer, power or fame, success is simply the satisfaction and happiness I get from leading a particular way of life.

I have always define my own concept of success rather than following someone else’s footsteps. Passion is where my heart and soul follows. The path to success is always challenging. We should build confidence and the last most important factor is discipline.

Success is a journey which continues even after the goal is achieved.

Do you think your mission of empowering women and children will goa long way? Will it be a challenge or a success?

Parenting is too important responsibility to bear alone, yet all too often single mothers are forced to do just that, but those living in poverty face plenty more. I believe that effective parenting leads to successful, well-adjusted children, we scaffolds families facing income loss, emotional trauma, and social deterioration as the result of divorce, abandonment, or widowhood. With a mission to “empower single mothers and their children by providing hope, support, and resources so families can become self-sustaining and thrive.”

“Financial independence is what single mothers struggle to achieve,” these women have virtually no savings and carry a heavy burden on their shoulder. We were working on a project to provide overall holistic development to these single mothers. The aim is to help achieve the concerns such as reduction of malnutrition and sicknesses, improvement of the living conditions, improvement in dressing, reduction of early marriages, improvement of school enrolment, skills development, and reduction of violence and strengthen their personalities.

This is indeed a challenge as we faced many obstacles down the road. We need the community to dedicate a few minutes, flex a few muscles and shed a few hundreds to be a part of the change. The change that these mothers and children stand next with pride and dignity as they too will hold financial independence.

What are your greatest strength and weaknesses?

I like to believe myself as a blessed and empowered woman thanks to my parents, my son and my partner. That has being my primary source of inspiration and confidence to look at this world with empathy and force of purpose.

My greatest strength is my desire and natural ability to create connections, to build strong relationships and bring together people to make a piercing impact for the betterment of the causes that I mentioned above.

My biggest weakness is also my greatest strength. I embrace my every dimple and curve with two scoops of ice cream and be the cherry on top. I will never call myself a survivor…. I am a warrior.

What are the challenges the single mothers face in our society and comparethem with women around the world

Compared to many other countries that has developed systematic support systems from social services for single parents and their children, countries like ours has minimum to none existing.

We required a National Action Plan so the single mothers in Sri Lanka will be better empowered to face their many challenges. The single mothers will definitely benefit from policies to fit their requirements in areas such as provision of adequate child care facilities, should they choose to work, and skills training to make them employable, just to name a few. The corporate and business establishments as well as the government organizations has a major leap of faith to come together.

Give a list of your achievements or titles you hold

Received the Women’s Excellence Award for the Women’s Day 2017

Presented the ‘Goodwill Ambassador for Child Rights’ 2016

Presented with the ‘Global Goodwill Ambassador’ 2018

100 Successful Women in Business Honorees – Global Trade Chamber

Top 10 at the Mrs. International Pageant 2011. She was a member of the Sri Lanka National Basket Ball team winning National Colors for Basketball

The mantra you live by

Work hard, play hard and love hard.