Let's give our hands to protect the victimes

 Nearly 400,000 still affected by floods in Sri Lanka, 40 dead, 7 missing


Dec 29, Colombo: Sri Lanka's Disaster Management Center (DMC) says it is providing relief to nearly 400,000 people that are still affected by the floods and landslides.
According to the DMC, since December 17, 398,538 people belonging to 109,191 families have been affected by the adverse weather in Southern, Central, North Central, Uva, Sabaragamuwa, Eastern, Northern and North Western Provinces.
The DMC reported 40 deaths, 10 of them in the Eastern Province while 7 have been declared missing and 20 individuals have been injured.
A total of 38,763 people of 11,120 families have been sheltered in 244 evacuation centers.
The floods and landslides had damaged 4,191 houses completely and 21,674 houses partially.
The government has estimated that some 78,559 hectares of paddy lands have been completely destroyed and 158 mini irrigation tanks in 11 districts have been extensively damaged by floods.
Meanwhile, Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said the government has allocated 142 million rupees to provide relief to the affected people and another 50 million rupees are needed.
However, the opposition parties have criticized the government for not providing adequate relief to the affected people in rural areas.
The Minister has dismissed the opposition charges saying that the country's Army and Navy are also assisting relief distribution and repairing damaged roads and dams in flooded areas.

 

freedom to the Marginalized in North and East

Work shop for sharing experience

15/16 December

NAFSO Training center –Negombo

 Work shop was organized simultaneously the year end evaluation and planning meeting as a part of that  being collaborated  district coordinators, volunteers and community leaders who engage with the program in district level on 15/16 of December 2012 at the NAFSO training center , Negombo. We had different objectives to organize that Work shop

Such as

* Aware the community leaders.

* Sharing district experiences among community leaders. Coordinators as well as volunteers on programs

* Compare the achievements between community leaders and field staff, being built up the network and strengthened and make a stage to show their skills.

This Work shop was organized as an extension of the evaluation meeting because we wanted to consider the views of community leaders about the programs as stakeholders and external observers on programs in district level. There were community leaders in Jaffna, Mannar, Batticaloa, Ampara and Trincomlee districts except the coordinators and volunteers to the seminar.

Participation

District

*Jaffna- Community leaders-06,Volunteers -03,and Coordinator

*Mannar- Community leaders-06,Volunteers -07,and Coordinator

*Batticaloa- Community leaders-11 and Coordinator

*Trincomlee- Community leaders-10, Volunteers -03, and Coordinator

*Ampara- Community leaders-06,Volunteers -01,and Coordinator

Facilitators

*Priyankra costa

*Predeep wanigasuriya

* A.Jesudasan

*Lavina Hasanthi

Special Facilitator  

*Roy Ruddigu  

We organized a common discussion and group work in the first day of the work shop. There was a deep conversation about the impact of the programs among the community leaders. They got the initiate to present the achievements, consider the mistakes and plan the future activities as the community leaders. That was a good combination between community leaders and the field staff to assess the progress within the project year. 

We planed a session to educate the community leaders as well as other participants on LLRC report as an essential issue because everyone had come from the Tamil speaking society in the North and East.  Another session was conducted to provide the knowledge of capacity building and collaboration leadership. That was full of games and practical activities.

Second day of the work shop, an exhibition was organized by the participations to show the progress of the program within the project period covering the all programs in district level.  That was an excellent attempt of them with limited resources to present their achievements. Different methods, strategies and tools were used to success the exhibition.  Very colorful stall was arranged by Mannar team and one of the volunteers expressed their feelings with tears about the land grabbing in Mullikulam.  The group of Jaffna presented the situation of IDP camps and people of them. Every group worked hard to presents the existing situation related to the programs in district level.

They organized the exhibition with cultural event and there were warmly welcome the chief guests. Mr. Herman Kumara who is the national convener of NAFSO, Mr. George and Anil came from the organization of MIIARC, in India participated as invitees to open the exhibition.  Some representatives of Sri Vimukthi Fish Women Organization and Mr. Brito Fernando, director of the “Right to Life” visited the exhibition.

We got the proposals especially from community leaders to prepare an action plan for next year as the final session of the work shop.