Note to Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe, Leader of the Opposition

on

Encroachment of Paddy Lands in Mutur Division, Trincomalee District
April 2013

Submitted by: Viluthu, Centre for Human Resource Development

The Problem:

The villages of Kanguveli, Menkaamam, 58th milepost, Bharathipuram, Paddithidal, Mallikaithivu, Manatchenai and Tamil inhabitants of Paalathoppur are 7 villages under the Mutur DS Division located within a lush paddy cultivation area with abundance of water resources. The paddy lands owned by the people of these areas are located around the village Kanguveli, which is bordered by three Sinhala villages of Neelapola, Dehiwatte and Samagipura. At present, it is claimed that over 700 acres of paddy lands have been encroached upon by the Sinhalese in this area. Read More

Campaign to empower rural women to come forward to be members of the Mediation Boards

After the cessation of hostilities, one would notice many conflicts arising among the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) or persons who have returned to their severely destroyed residential areas. Many of such conflicts that did not get resolved at their early stages could have ended in serious tragedies. In this context it should be noted that Medation Boards are functioning successfully in many parts of the country without much costs and waste of time.
Currently the Mediation Boards Commision functioning under the Ministry of Justice had requested the Divisional Secretaries of nominate names to select Mediators, either to the functioning Mediation Boards or to the new Mediation Boards gazetted. However, even within the lists of names proposed by these Divisional Secretaries, names of women are found to be very few.
We trust that you would agree that the representation of women need to be increased in these Mediation Boards as almost all incidents do relate and affect the women folk and many decisions taken by all men Medaitors could be “settled” with or without gender sensitiveness. Therefore, we request you take adequate effort to nominate honest, brave and socially accepted women without political affiliation in your areas to represent women in the Mediation Boards.
Please send at least five such names to “Viluthu” for us to do the needful.
Divisional Secretary areas to which nominations are expected are as follows:

Making Representations

Viluthu is making representations in front of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committe today (4th January 2011) on behalf of the IDPs of Puttalam and the Tamil speaking population of Puttalam.

Formulation of the Education Act

Viluthu as part of the Campaign for Better Education has begun lobbying action to endure the proposal submitted jointly as well as individually to the drafting committee of the Ministry of Education are included and implemented within the proposed Education Act.

Supporting the development of formal education in Sri Lanka is one of the objectives of  Viluthu. In this context it has engaged with the process  initiated by the government of Sri Lanka in formulating a new education Act  since the year 2007. After many deliberations, and scrutinizing hundreds of submissions, and after having been derailed due to continuing elections throughout 2009 and 2010, the  government has reopened  this process since middle of this year.

Viluthu, along with the Campaign for Better Education has initiated a series of activities in lobbying parliamentarians, Buddhist clergy and community leaders to bring about far reaching changes in our education Act. Primary of our demands is to ensure an education infused with values of pluralism not only in the curriculum content, but also in the way schools are managed and education is organized. Secondly, we request for a devolution of power to the regional administration so that teacher recruitment, curriculum delivery and text book usage are targeted to the needs of the particular region. Thirdly, we request for greater autonomy for School Development Societies, so that more resources of the State could be targeted at all the disadvantaged schools in all the districts, including Colombo. Read more

Vuiluthu’s submissions to the drafting committee… English | Tamil