October, 2025

Pathways to Leadership – EmpowerU

An initiative under the Women in Leadership programme.
Economics Equality Blog Sri Lanka

“We like to see our children coming to high staff positions in the [tea] estates. It is our dream. We do not want our children to toil as harvesters and labourers, like our ancestors and us.”

This is the common, collective aspiration voiced by tea harvesters who have long hoped for better opportunities for their children. For decades, parents have called for professional jobs on estates that match the educational qualifications many young people now hold.

With tea’s limited job opportunities, the estates’ youth often choose to work in nearby towns and cities as domestic helpers, waiters, or in spas and beauty salons.

Despite these jobs providing them meagre incomes, they perceive them to be more professional and dignified than estate work and as a way to retain anonymity away from crowded line rooms. Rather than offering greener pastures, however, such jobs can bring significant challenges. Young people – especially girls – often falling prey to exploitation, harassment and sometimes violence at the hands of their employers, especially those in domestic positions.

Listening to communities

The concerns of those on tea estates were echoed during a baseline survey of ETP’s Women in Leadership (WiL) programme, an initiative designed to understand and strengthen women’s roles in the tea sector. Workers, community members, and young people participating in focus groups emphasised the potential of Regional Plantation Companies providing professional career opportunities on estates – both to meet career aspirations and to address the safety challenges of working outside of the estates.

At Hayley’s Plantations, which manages Talawakelle Tea Estates PLC (TTE), senior management listened. They recognised that it was the very communities who had carried the tea industry over the last 150 years who were now calling for change. TTE had already shown leadership by appointing female Junior Assistant Field Officers in 2023, a first for the Hayleys Plantations Group.

Launching EmpowerU

In May 2025 it went even further by launching “EmpowerU”, an initiative aimed at empowering young women and men from estate worker families by offering them opportunities to become staff within TTE estates. This project marks a significant milestone in the Sri Lankan plantation industry, as it is rare for a plantation company to create such a pathway for estate youth to become estate staff.

While embarking on a project of this nature is costly and beyond the reach of most companies or government backing, support from The Republic of Tea (TRoT) and TTE’s own resources made the initiative possible. Integrated with ETP and TRoT’s Women in Leadership programme, EmpowerU was designed to offer structured training and pathways into staff positions for young people from estate communities.

Beginnings and future scope

The selection process started by advertising training opportunities, with a commitment to recruit 90% of trainees to workers’ families. Today, 34 young people – 25 of whom are women – are undergoing on-the-job training on different estates. Alongside technical training, they have also received guidance from the Department of Labour, the National Institute of Labour Studies (NILS), Tea Research Institute (TRI), LEADS, World Vision and TTE’s internal resource personnel covering leadership, communication, productivity concepts, teamwork, community empowerment and life skills.

All 34 young people trained through EmpowerU in the WiL programme are expected to be appointed as staff in their estates’ factories, field and offices after their training period, from January 2026.

Reflections

One of the participants, Joseph Prashanthani, daughter of a tea harvester, shared her experience:

“Apart from the technical training, sessions on communication, leadership, life skills and productivity concepts, are very valuable. I firmly believe that strong communication skills are an integral part of becoming a good team member. Though I was informed of other job opportunities, I have decided to continue this career path. I look forward in anticipation to every new experience, ready to grow and make a difference in my life.”

Dulshanka Jayathilaka, Senior Group Manager, Mattakelle Estate, who was also one of the programme’s trainers, commented:

“With my seventeen years of experience in the plantation sector, I consider the Empower U Programme to be the most exemplary initiative I have encountered. It presents an excellent opportunity for our employees’ children to join the leading plantation company as permanent staff. The programme offers valuable training, site visits, and exposure tours that many of our staff have not had the opportunity to experience previously. I am confident that this investment in their development will bring significant positive changes to the plantation industry.  Among all the trainees, I am proud to have the highest number under my supervision. I view this as a great privilege to mentor and support their growth, helping them advance in their careers. I sincerely wish all of them a prosperous future.”

Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, Director General of NILS, Rohith Peiris, ETP’s Sri Lanka Country Manager, and other government and TTE officials.

By integrating EmpowerU into its existing Women in Leadership programme, TTE has created a model that promotes dignity and opens up opportunities for young people in tea communities. With continued collaboration between plantation companies, communities, and partners like ETP and TRoT, programmes like this can help transform young people’s futures.

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