Programmes 1. Mobilizing of informed communities/citizens as a countervailing power to the state and the market. a) Forming and/or strengthening interests based community organizations,Trade Unions and Consumer Associations. Provide training on organizational management, strategy planning, setting up monitoring systems, and doing evaluations. Through continuous engagement, encourage them to internalize democratic systems of transparency, accountability, and adopt decision making processes based on consensus Ø Capacity Building fishing societies b) Providing a forum for citizen’s education, their mobilization and action through the formation and networking of study circles. Study circles provide an entirely new cultural environment in allowing free but structured discussions, acknowledgement and acceptance ofdifferences, and the forging of common ground on which basis collective action is formulated. Study circles are further encouraged by organizing
film viewing sessions and other public meetings on any common or
critical issue. Based on the need expressed by the members of study
circles, publications are released by Viluthu. Altogether 63 circles
function at present in the districts of the North-East, amongst
teachers, students, and professionals. Many of these groups have
started to identify some small local initiatives for change. Training
of volunteers as facilitators, provision of publications/other reading
materials, provision of discussion guides, film circle discussions, and
procurement of dubbed / subtitled foreign language films are some of
the activities related to this program. |
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2.promoting the participation of stakeholders in the planning and decision making within government programs, through support for the creation of appropriate mechanisms, and the upholding of the right to information. a) Providing
training for government staff at the Divisional Secretary’s level as
well as the district level on evolving participatory mechanisms in
favour of stakeholders, mainstreaming gender on the one hand and
building capacity for village based organizations on the other
The divisional level
activities complement the strengthening of village based organizations.
Village based organizations are capacitated to lobby for access to
government services and resources. Planning Officers, Women Development
Officers, Relief Officers are some of the staff trained by Viluthu.
This activity will be continued and expanded within the North-East. 3.strengthening the political agency of communities / citizens by empowering local governments through widening their sphere of implementation and their fiscal authority a) Training for elected people’s representatives on the legislations pertaining to local government. At present Viluthu is writing a simple pictorial representation of the local government legislations for the education of the rural community, especially the women. b)Training for elected
representatives, staff of local government institutions and the
community organizations on evolving and making functional participatory
mechanisms. c) Advocacy for greater power and authority for local governments will be pursued in earnest under the state restructuring efforts as part of the solution to the ethnic conflict d) Promoting the participation of women in local governments. In Jan 2008 Viluthu collaborated with the office of the Assistant Commissioner of Local Government in providing training to women leaders in local government legislation in all 12 divisions of Batticaloa district. This program was actually in anticipation of the impending local government elections in that district where we hoped to field all women groups as candidates. But the intimidation and violence pursued by the armed groups this attempt was abandoned. However, we hope that the foundations laid in this effort will bear fruit in the future. )Publicationswhat
are the publications under this action strategy
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4.Transform media institutions to Viluthu’s core values; that they assume responsibility to provide critical information and be open to being a fair forum for the multiple and differing voices of citizens. This is achieved through building their capacities, as well as setting new trends with alternative models. a) Workshops for working journalists and journalists associations on enhancing their professionalism, including that of reporting in conflict regions |
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b) Publishing periodicals Viluthu publishes two periodicals under this component. One is a quarterly multi disciplinary journal covering social, political, economic and cultural themes. This is targeted at academics and is printed and sold 500 Nos. The other is a popular fortnightly magazine targeted at the general public. This is done at commercial standards for mass circulation as a vehicle to take the message to the public at large. This was started only in August 2007, and is printed 3,000 and sold through all the news agents. It is hoped to achieve 30,000 circulation by 2009. C) Electronic Media productions Viluthu has embarked on producing radio and television documentaries. For the use of mainstream media. The first radio productions have been profiling the services being rendered by women leaders in their villages. The fate of women sent to the Middle East countries for employment as house maids, and street children were two issues taken up for production. These were aired over the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation as well as the various community radios around the country. Similarly the first venture in television
production is on at present. This looks at the ideological
content of history and is targeted at teachers and educationists. Television Soaps have a vast and captured
market. One of the proposed plans is to produce soaps that dwell on any
one of Viluthu’s objectives. The first of this kind is to deal
with a school community. At present we have plans only for Tamil
productions in television whereas in the radio productions we broadcast
in both Tamil and Sinhala. |
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b)Publications “Aha Vili” has catalyzed the formation
of Teachers’ Study circles in many areas and Viluthu continues
to supply a stream of publications for the benefit of these
groups. Over 20 books have been published many of which
bring knowledge updates translated form English and other
languages. Another creditable “first” was a competition conducted by
Viluthu on research papers on four themes related to ‘gender in
education’. The papers selected in this competition were compiled in to a
publication. Changing policies and legislations
pertaining to education so as to enable it to be accessed equally
by every child/person, as well as create an environment of
empowerment for the education community as a whole. In 2007 the
Sri Lankan government announced a proposed education Act to
replace the previous one enacted in 1939. Viluthu was the first
organization to put together a comprehensive set of
recommendations. These recommendations were discussed at
larger gatherings of educationists in Colombo and also were printed in
the three languages and distributed around the country.
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Viluthu’s Current Activities 2008 On the basis of the identified strategic sectors of interventions, Viluthu is currently involved in the following activities: Study Circles We continue with our activities pertaining to Study Circles. This is basically encouraging small groups of peers to meet regularly either to discuss something that had been read by all of them, or a film viewed by them. Viluthu provides them with publications, articles, and film DVDs, all of which flag some specific issues and provoke discussions that promote a culture of sharing and listening to opposing views. Some of our study circle members have transcended this first phase and have entered the second phase of engaging in collective local action for change in their own spheres. Peace Education Viluthu had released 3 publications for the purpose of education in conflict transformation. These publications explored concepts of State and Nations, in addition to giving a brief outline of post independence history of the conflict. These have been extremely popular especially with our Sinhala readers. We receive positive and sometimes negative responses at least one every week. Our communications with our reader clients have led to the establishment of links and networks in the South, which we hope to use in a comprehensive project to promote democracy. This process has begun with the organizing of small group discussion meetings on the issues raised in the publications. Importantly, these meetings are organized on the request of the participant organizations. Gender and Development Our Gender program is approached from two levels. One is to look at policy and awareness rising at the macro level, and the other is to work at the grass roots with women’s groups to bring changes in the lives of individuals. In fact, often times it is our work at the grass roots that informs our policy work. At the macro level, we are
focusing on promoting women’s participation in politics, through working
for reforms within political parties, as well as encouraging women
leaders to engage in political activity. Also, engaging with the
government staff working at the divisional and district levels to
deepen their understanding of and strengthening their capacities to
implement gender projects, falls under this category of policy. Education Development This is the fifth year of
Viluthu’s publication of the monthly journal “Aha Vili” for teachers.
Aha Vili continues to spawn debates amongst the teacher training
college communities as well as study circle members. Thereby seminars
are conducted for teachers within and outside of the teachers training
colleges with the aim of building their capacities to deliver quality
education. Working with Local Authorities Local Governments are critical to achieving Viluthu’s vision of a participatory democracy. Strengthening transparent and accountable systems within local governments through the provision of training, raising awareness on the importance of LGs amongst the grass roots communities, and promoting women’s equal participation in local governance are the projects pursued by Viluthu. Media Viluthu’s media
activities are manifold. We possess an audio recording
facility with which radio programs are produced and given to the
national and private radio channels for broadcast. Our Sponsors:
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Review of Viluthu Programme for 2009 Overview The year 2009 has been a vast improvement on Viluthu’s performance and project impact compared to the previous years. Two reasons could be c ited for this improvement: a) The programme impacts were structured in to well identifiable levels of achievements and this approach was communicated to the field staff effectively. For instance, our work with the village based Women’s Rural Development Societies (WRDSs) was structured in to four levels of building institutional management capacities, Resource mobilization and accessing services capacities, advocacy and networking capacities and, lastly mobilizing to build social movement capacities. Each level had identifiable outputs with which the staff could relate, and they started applying themselves diligently towards obtaining these outputs. b) Our efforts in linking all the programmes with each other were effectively implemented this year. Gender, Good Governance and media were, the three issues/sector that was cross cutting all of Viluthu’s programme interventions. We would say that the internalization process of the staff and close monitoring brought us this benefit. At present, we are being supported by the Asia Foundation, Women Defining Peace (a project of Canada Fund), ARD (a project of USAID), HIVOS, the Swiss Embassy, and Give 2 Asia apart from AJWS. Specific Achievements The year 2009 has been a vast improvement on Viluthu’s performance and project impact compared to the previous years. Two reasons could be c ited for this improvement: a)1. Building Capacities of CBOs, especially the WRDSs/ Linking them with Local Governance. Viluthu is already working in 105 villages in the four districts of Puttalam, Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa with both Tamil and Muslim communities. Study circle discussions, film circle discussions, legal awareness programmes, events connected to significant dates such as IWD, training in carrying out advocacy and campaign activities (given only in the latter part of the year), training on formulating a village development plan were the inputs to these WRDSs, strategically provided depending on the level of their growth. Some milestones reached by them are foll: * WRDS from KovilKulam was able to mobilize its own funding for a community centre from a German donor within 1 ½ years of Viluthu establishing this group. * The links created between the WRDSs and the Local Authorities has brought an
acknowledgement of the importance of women’s groups in the planning process
of the LAs, so that in two divisions of Batticaloa district the secretary to
the LAs have contacted us in order to have closer cooperation with our work.
There are two more DS divisions in Batticaloa district where the Divisional
Secretary has INVITED Viluthu to work with the WRDSs there. We have not taken
this opportunity as we are acutely in shortage of district travelling funds.. * WRDS from Thanganagar in Trincomalee district was able to solve a burning issue
of lack of teachers in their local school. The zonal office contacted them to
immediately send two volunteer teachers and promised 2 graduate trained teachers
from January 2010 as a result of their lobbying efforts. The WRDS has sent a letter
of appreciation to Viluthu for having helped them achieve this. * The WRDSs in general achieved recognition and respect from the village for organizing
legal awareness programmes conducted by professional lawyers. Hundreds of cases are
being solved especially concerning lack of identity documents and divorce (desertion)
alimonies. * In Puttalam district, after Viluthu conducted training on proposal writing the WRDSs
have put this in to practice and impressed their respective DS offices (a list of
WRDSs which were able to raise funding will be attached with the interim report).
The Puttalam CHA (Consortium of Humanitarian Organizations) called our office
coordinator and tersely asked her “Are you intending to put sand over our employment?”
referring to the high costs charged by some of these organizations to write project
proposals for the others, which sometimes went up to Rs 50,000!!! Thereafter, Puttalam
office of CHA conducted a fresh training for all the NGOs in proposal writing so that
they can be on par with the CBOs! 2. Promoting women’s political participation
In May elections were announced for the Vavuniya and Jaffna Municipal councils. We immediately started work in Jaffna to encourage women to come forward to contest the elections. We first identified the leading women members of CBOs in all the wards of the Council and then went and personally met with each woman (and her CBO). Our intention was to field an all woman independent list. As it was so close to the end of war in May, most women were fear stricken. We could not obtain the necessary 29 names for nominations. Finally after talking to over 35 women, we managed to get five of them to contest in any parties they chose. Two of them have been elected, and in addition to them now Jaffna has a woman mayor (however that particular candidate did not come because of our efforts).
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