We met a Belgian, Pieres Pringiers, who is the founder of BAF (Building A Future Foundation). We visited his small factory near our hotel as well as Mrissa Water Sports, Boating Harbour and Catamaran factory, all businesses launched by people trained by BAF.
Mr Pringiers is passionate that Weligama has growth potential in tourism and fishing industry, and in particular, boat manufacturing and leisure sailing may be niches worth persuing in the future. In Mirissa harbour there were many boats for fishing, marine sports and whale watching. Then, we visited a bigger boat factory in Kagorra. This factory is more developed and we could see different processes of manufacturing. Overall, these projects have helped local people in terms of employee opportunity and skill development and lead to economic development and sustainability. In the afternoon, we visited a hotel school called “vocational training centre Ahangama” and located in Kagorra. 70 students aged around 17 years old are learning hospitality and catering related skills. The school offers several courses such as cooking, housekeeping, bakery etc. After 6 months education, the students are hired in each hotel and trained for another six month. We looked around the kitchen, a guest room and lecture rooms. After the visits, we spent our afternoon in Mirissa beach which is our favourite place. The surf was up.