4.8 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2021
⏱️ 36 minutes
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0:00.0 | January 2016, Colombo in Sri Lanka. Things haven't been going well for Shalika |
0:09.0 | Perera, but her life is about to change. Shalika is a businesswoman in her late |
0:14.2 | 30s. She's got big dreams including becoming a politician one day. She set up |
0:19.6 | companies in construction, car parts publishing, catering, none of its worked out. |
0:24.5 | The losses from a publishing firm were apparently so bad she was forced to sell |
0:28.4 | for the computers. So she's changed, tacked and decided to go down the philanthropic |
0:34.0 | route. She set up a charity in her own name, the Shalika Foundation, which she says will |
0:39.8 | help build houses for the poor and provide other social services. And it sounds like her |
0:45.7 | strategy is going to pay off. This could be the one because her charity is about to get |
0:50.1 | a massive windfall. She's been meeting potential donors from Japan. One of their |
0:54.8 | middlemen is now confirming an imminent transfer from a big Japanese investment fund. |
0:59.6 | It's $20 million. The middleman even gives a letter to prove it. It's on-headed |
1:05.2 | note paper and everything. But if you look a bit closer, there are some tell-tale signs |
1:09.5 | that the letter isn't quite on the level. For a start, there are some spelling errors. |
1:13.8 | It also features a sort of grainy mocked-up graphic showing a stack of banknotes tied |
1:18.3 | up with a yellow ribbon. Not exactly the kind of thing a multi-million pound investor |
1:22.3 | is known for. Still as far as Shalika's concern, things are looking up. |
1:28.3 | This is Shalika speaking in 2016 and she's explaining how important the $20 million donation |
1:43.5 | is to her foundation. She's talking to Shihar Andi's. He's a Sri Lankan investigative |
1:48.6 | journalist working for Reuters. She was telling a lot of stories about |
1:53.1 | your housing, rural electrification, improving the economy of the rural poor. |
1:59.9 | That'll take money so this $20 million donation is a big deal for Shalika. It could turn |
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