Organizations

Sarvodaya

Sarvodaya development center was established in 1958. Its a non government organisation(NGO). They work to create a no poverty, no affluence and a conflict-free society. A part of their vision is to satisfy the basic needs of people. They have nursing homes for the elderly, childcares, give people water and much more.

We had the privilege to visit one of their 12 orphanages centers.

Sarvodaya means Total Awakening and Well-being of All (individuals, family, village, nation, and the world) on every plane (spiritual, moral, cultural, social, economic and political). Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne founded Sarvodaya in 1958. Sarvodaya’s philosophy and approach is clearly rooted in Gandhian and Buddhist traditions, but actively engages people of all religions and ethnic backgrounds. Events at the village, district, and national levels often begin with non-denominational meditation and invocations from the perspectives of all religions represented. The Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement seeks a no-poverty, no affluence society in Sri Lanka through community-based efforts and volunteerism. Sarvodaya represents the third sector/ civil society and it’s a non government organization.

ICTA

ICTA is Information and communication technology agency in Colombo. ICTA is the apex ICT institution of the government in Sri Lanka and is a fully government funded agency that is working to digitalize Sri Lanka. ICTA stared out as a development project funded by the world bank, and due to the projects significant progress, it became a permanent government institution by the ICT-act of 2003. For more information about ICTA and their exciting projects visit https://www.icta.lk

World Food Program

World Food Program (WFP) is under the organisation of United Nations, and they are combating hunger, reaching for goal 2 of “the sustainable development goals”, eradicating hunger. Sri Lanka is a middle-income country, and still the WFP operates here, because the country is still affected by the civil war, and climate shocks which leads to undernutrition. This is considered to be one of the obstacles to the socioeconomic development. In Sri Lanka the level of chronic malnutrition is among the lowest in the region. This is not the same for acute malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies. High levels of acute malnutrition between 14-35 percent were found across all 25 districts according to the 2012 national nutrition survey. There is a lot of climate changes in Sri Lanka because it’s an island. Droughts, floods and landslides are the most recurring natural disasters. These disasters have a huge effect on food security, nutrition and income levels which has led to growing debt and minimal access to clean water for drinking and cultivation.

This is where WFP comes in, together with the Government of Sri Lanka, WFP aims to address the underlying causes of food insecurity and malnutrition and promote longer-term resilience and recovery from natural disasters. To achieve this, they focus on providing technical and policy support, in addition to improve the productivity and income of farmers (World Food Programme, 2019).

Side note: WFP is world’s oldest aid organization, established in 1961.

World Food Programme. (2019, January 11^th). Sri Lanka. Source:https://www1.wfp.org/countries/sri-lanka

Strømme foundation

Strømme Foundation, which is a Norwegian organization, voluntary based and was established in 1976 by a priest named Olav Kristian Strømme. The foundation provides assistance to poor people in the Global South to pull themselves out of poverty, through microfinancing, education and empowering.   The foundation started to work in Sri Lanka in 2001 and they collaborate with 5 different partners. Their main goal is to empower the people through education and awareness and then to change their thinking pattern. The vision of the Stromme Foundation is a world without poverty.

The Norwegian Embessy

The Norwegian embassy is in Colombo. They handle diplomatic relations with both Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The primary objective of the embassy is to help Norwegians in their area if they are in need of help. Also they promote norwegian business interests, reputation and norwegian culture, aswell as Norways political and economic interests in Sri Lanka. If any citizen of Sri Lanka or the Maldives wants to apply for a visa to Norway, the application goes through the embassy in Colombo.

Kilde: https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dep/ud/org/utenriksstasjoner/id524467/

UNDP

UNDP is the United Nations development programme. Their main focus is helping eradicate poverty and reducing inequalities and exclusion. With operations in about 170 countries and territories, the UNDP, “help countries develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities and build resilience in order to sustain development results.” They also want to promote local economic development trough market-based livelihood opportunities to vulnerable communities. Most Sri Lankan people work in agriculture, livestock, fisheries, Communities based organisations strengthening (UNDP. 2019, 18^th January. From http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/about-us.html).

University of Ruhuna

The University of Ruhuna has more than one campus. The main campus, which is the one we visited, is located on the outskirts of the city Matara. They also have a campus which is located in the city Galle. Currently they have ten different faculties at the university, the same amount as the biggest university in Sri Lanka, the University of Peradeniya. They have faculties for Agriculture, Engineering, Fisheries and Marine Sciences & Technology, Humanities and Social Sciences, Management and Finance, Medicine, Science, Graduate studies , Technology and Allied Health Sciences. When the university was founded in 1978 they only had three faculties. The university currently has about 11.000 students and has 2000 people working as staff.

Free trade zone

The free trade zone in Koggala is located on the southern coast. A Free Trade Zone (FTZ) or export processing zone (EPZ) is a area of a country where some normal trade barriers such as tariffs and quotas are eliminated and bureaucratic requirements are lowers in hopes of attracting new business and foreign investments. To promote economic development in Sri Lanka, the Free trade zones were introduced in the late 1970s. The promises of low or non-existent taxes where set up to attract foreign investments to these specially designated manufacturing areas. Free Trade Zones (FTZs) or Export Processing Zones (EPZs) are a key aspect of export orientated development strategy, as promoted by the IMF and World Bank, which is seen as central to the industrialization or “liberalization” of the economy of developing countries.

Women Development Center

Women development center (WDC) is a non-government organization. It was established in 1968 by Mrs. Pearl Stephen. At that time women had no rights and no way of surviving, according to the present CEO Ms. Sashi Stephen. Violence against women was not recognized. Mrs. Peral Stephen saw all this and decided to do something about it.

“serving and empowering women children, youth, persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups within society.” (womendev.org)

The organization started with focus on violence. They gathered women and talked about domestic violence, sexual violence and more.

With time the organization expanded to focusing on all vulnerable groups in society, not only victims of violence. These groups include children, youth, persons with disabilities, sex workers and more.

WDC´s overall mission is to” be a socially accountable and sustainable mediator”. (womendev.org). WDC works within 13 districts in Sri Lanka.

They work either with establishing new women groups or with already established ones.

Women development center wants to reach women in rural and urban areas. Building knowledge and awareness for them to bring justice to themselves and others. Their programs target areas like home management, prevention of drug addiction and abuse, economic empowerment and more.

Sources: Womendev.org and our talk with Ms. Sashi Stephen

White elephant projects of Hambantota

First, we want to define what a white elephant project is. A white elephant project is a building project that has been funded by loans and are too expensive to use, they become a huge debt burden. The first project we visited was the Harbor in Hambantota which was built by the Chinese, and is also now been leased by the Chinese, so this harbor is no longer Sri Lankan territory, we were not even allowed to enter the premises.  The next project we visited was the Rajapaksa International airport. It was absurd seeing this huge top modern airport without any real activity. After this we went on to visit the Cricket stadium which is also a top modern and huge project that isn’t for fulling its full potential.

Red Flag

Red flag was founded in 2009 to have an oversight over professionals in public and private sectors and ngo’s. They are working with the likes of UN and International financial institutions. Red flags most important work comes through advising on governance, accountability, transparency, risk management, training, auditing, investigation and promoting ethics in small and medium sized business entities. https://www.myredflag.org/aboutus

University of Peradeniya

The university of Peradeniya was founded in 1942 in the city of colombo. In 1952 however it was moved to the central province of Sri Lanka about 6km outside of Kandy. On its moving it also got the name of “University of Ceylon Peradeniya” which has later been changed to only “University of Peradeniya. The University itself is engulfed in lush green vegetation and mist-clad mountains. It has a total of 9 faculties and are a school to more then 11 thousands students. Their vision is to “be a centre of excellence in higher education with national, regional and global standing”.

Institute of Social Development

Institute of Social Development (ISD) is a NGO based in Kandy, established in 1991 by a group of volunteers who wanted to map the improvements of plantation communities lives. The findings were that there ha been no measurable changes. Their main goal is to empower marginalized and discriminated people of the Plantation community. ISD has executed various programmes, raising awareness and building capacity to empower the plantation community. Today they are involved in advocating for the plantation communities labour, gender and human rights (Institute of Social Development 2019)

Source: https://www. isdkandy.org/index.php/about-us

Women`s Development Federation

Women`s Development Federation was established in 1989 by Mr. W.G. Mithrarathne and is an Nongovermental Organization working in the Hambantota district and Moneragala district. Their mission is to offer both financial and non financial services for the empowerment of disadvantaged and distressed women and their families. WDF has grown into an organization with 1272 women development societies consisting of more than 70,000 members.

Source: http://www.wdfsl.org/