Well-Being For All

Sara's Journey- The Spirit of Hope Part 4

*as seen on World Class documentary

My return…

I returned to Sri Lanka a little apprehensive and very curious about what the situation would look like six months after my first trip and almost exactly one year after the tsunami. Through filming the documentary, I discovered that a great deal more construction had happened on that western coast south of Colombo. There were almost no temporary tents visible, hopefully indicating that most occupiers had been relocated and had residence. The water and sanitation tanks still existed in some areas, but it seemed as though a return to water systems had occurred in this area. In some instances, this could be an improvement of the sanitation services that existed before. The women of the SAPSRI lace-making cooperative had broken into the international export market and were distributing to Europe. This prompted the development of another women’s employment scheme through SAPSRI involving coir production. Coir is twine made from coconut shells and can be used in rope, matting, baskets, brooms and much more. I could see this same hope and optimism in the people I met growing as the promise of livelihood through cooperative development continued to grow.


Bringing it all together…

Reconstruction and development work in Sri Lanka is still problematic. From what I experienced, there is still not enough funding channelled to the northern Tamil areas which exacerbates the ethnic conflict; corruption at various levels both public and private is a constant reality and a lack of synchronism and cooperation amongst government, NGO’s, entrepreneurs and civil society certainly impedes the coherence of the development agenda. However, through my experience working with the Sri Lankan’s in NGO’s and in the communities, I saw that hope can still exist. Even against such enormous obstacles, people, as individuals and as a community, can still make a difference.

posted by World Accord Staff @ 4:24 PM