Today our program didn’t start before 3pm. Everyone enjoyed a nice sunny morning. World Food Program was the plan for this afternoon.

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

This was an really exiting day. First we visited Sarvodaya Development center. Here you can read a bit more about 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.

After we had a great lecture at the center we went to visit the 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.

Both of the organizations we visited today were really interesting. After a successful day we had a great dinner in a chinese restaurant.

This morning was busy. Early after breakfast we took the bus to visit the 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

We had a big lunch befor we visited the Norwegian Embassy in Sri Lanka.

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/

Hey

Welcome to our blog. Today we just arrived and had no program for the day. Just chilling and sleeping. More is happening tomorrow.

More students arrived today. We went to the beach and enjoyed our time. In the evening we got practical information about the program. Later in the evening we had a kick off dinner at the beach resturant.

Welcome to our blog, where we will be sharing our experiences and finding from our field course in Sri Lanka. We are a group of students who study development studies at the Univeristy of Agder in Norway. As a part of our degree, we have to travel to a developing country and research the challenges they face and how they are being improved by various actors and organizations. Our field topic for this year is Sri Lanka’s socio-economic development since independence in 1948. To get an insight into this topic we will visit different organizations, both governmental and non—governemental, have lectures from University of Ruhuna, University of Jaffna, Univeristy of Peradeniya and visit various important cultural sites for Sri Lanka`s, so we can understand the country. By the end of this course we will conduct field work in Hambantota, where we will be staying with local families and further research each of the subtopics. 

If you look at the meny above on the blog, you will see that we have divided it into different topics: economy and politics, health and education and social and cultural affairs. Our travel group has been divided in to three groups that each will focus on a particular side of Sri Lanka`s development. For every visit we make to an organization, lecture or a cultural site, the group will post relevant information in each category. On our home page we will write general information on each visit, and if you want to know more about for example the economic side, you can just click on the category economy and politics above and you will get more detailed information. We tried to do it a bit like a dairy, and at the frontpage we will each day post a short description from our day – what we have done and the name of organizations and the places we have visited. For more information, please click on the topics. Hope everyone who reads our blog learn a lot about Sri Lanka.

Best regards 🙂