An enduring friendship - The Asia Foundation · Sri Lankans to achieve through its enduring...

An enduring friendshipTh

e Asia Foundation celebrates five decades in Sri LankaM

ichelle

Gunaw

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ana

www.asiafoundation.org

An enduring friendshipThe Asia Foundation celebrates five decades in Sri Lanka

by Michelle Gunawardana

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This book is published by The Asia Foundation in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Designed and produced by Copyline (Pvt) Limited.Cover photograph by Studio Times.

Printed by Ace Printing & Packaging (Pvt) Ltd.

First published 2009

copyright The Asia Foundation, Sri Lanka.

ISBN 978-955-0188-00-2

Previous pages: 2-3: 1990. A staff photograph of The Asia Foundation’s office in Sri Lanka.

4-5: 1957. The Asia Foundation together with the World Affairs Council of Northern California hosts a public dinner in San Francisco for Ceylon’s Prime Minister Sir John Kotalawela.

6-7: 1954. Rural women are trained in agricultural practices at the Lanka Mahila Samithi training centre in Kaduwela.

8-9: 1954. Youngsters and their parents attend a two-day rally of the South Ceylon Youth Council in Galle.

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The Asia Foundation is a private, non-profit, non-governmental organisation. Its mandate is to strengthen democratic governance, the rule of law, and civil society. It promotes women’s empowerment, economic reform, and international relations; and helps to build leadership, improve policies, and strengthen institutions in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Foundation is funded by contributions from corporations, foundations, individuals, and governmental organisations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Asia, and an annual appropriation from the United States Congress.

Mandate

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contents

Facing page:1957. Dancers of the Ruhunu Kala Kawaya, pictured here at the group’s annual cultural pageant were among the many artists and performers supported by The Asia Foundation during the fifties and sixties.

introduction ........................................................................................................... 15

the 1950s: a national revival ................................................................................... 18

the 1960s: developing leaders, building institutions ................................................... 32

the 1970s-1980s: a time to rebuild ........................................................................... 46

the 1990s: empowering people .................................................................................. 60

the 2000s: resolving conflict ..................................................................................... 84

looking back ......................................................................................................... 104

staff of the asia foundation in sri lanka .................................................................... 108

trustees of the asia foundation ................................................................................ 109

about the author ................................................................................................... 111

other book credits .................................................................................................. 112

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The Asia Foundation opened its office in Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, in 1954 so it was well established long before the non-governmental organisation (NGO) explosion of recent times. The Foundation has demonstrated over the past five decades that it has clear objectives, a strong commitment to national development, and plenty of staying power and is accepted in Sri Lanka as a trusted friend and partner.

The key to the Foundation’s long-term success has been its willingness to listen to what Sri Lankans believe they need and respond to those needs. The Asia Foundation does not have any standard course of action to achieve its mandate. It provides country offices and representatives with considerable flexibility to make decisions and relies heavily on the relationships and trust that it has developed with leaders and professionals from all walks of life to make sure its programmes are effective. A hallmark of the Foundation is that it responds to Sri Lankan initiatives so it is not coming in with preconceived notions of what is best for the country. All projects are conceived, directed, and executed by Sri Lankan organisations, government agencies, non-governmental organisations, and civil society associations. Foundation support takes whatever form can best supplement local efforts and requires in-kind contributions. Funds are used for technical assistance, training, and grants to local organisations for their activities, institutional development, and research. Over the years, the Foundation has provided seed money to help many projects and organisations get off the ground, injecting the critical resources that may have tipped the scales in favour of their success.

The Asia Foundation is committed to the development of a peaceful, prosperous, just, and open Asia-Pacific region – helping to build leadership, improve policies, and strengthen local institutions to foster greater openness and

introduction

shared prosperity. It encourages public participation in governance through elections and interaction with local councils to give more people a voice in the decisions that affect them, and it supports local efforts to broaden the benefits of economic development and give more people access to the resources, processes, and opportunities they need to improve their lives.

Within these broad parameters, the local institutions that The Asia Foundation has worked with and the programmes it has supported in Sri Lanka over the years, from the years immediately after independence to the present have varied widely in keeping with the changing needs of its people.

Through its consistent support for Sri Lankan initiatives and its record of helping fledgling projects to become self-sufficient and sustainable, the Foundation has earned the trust and regard of its partner organisations and the affection and gratitude of the citizens of Sri Lankans.

This book is not meant to be an exhaustive study of The Asia Foundation’s programmes in Sri Lanka. Nor does it attempt to list every organisation and initiative that the Foundation has supported over the past half-century. Instead, it is an attempt to capture the essence of the Foundation’s long relationship with this country; a look back through time to catch a glimpse of its beginnings in the 1950s as an organisation with an earnest desire and energetic commitment to make a difference in Asia; a narrative of how its work in Sri Lanka has grown and evolved and become more focused over the years while staying true to its philosophy of responding to Asian initiatives; and a celebration of what it has quietly helped Sri Lankans to achieve through its enduring friendship with the people of this island nation.

IntroductIon

Facing page:1998. The Asia Foundation has assisted local women’s organisations to empower rural women in communities such as this one in the Mahaweli settlement system.

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the 1950s: a national revival

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For Ceylonese, the first years after independence were a mix of the heady euphoria of freedom and the apprehensions of a society fragmented by centuries of colonial rule. It was a time when Ceylon had to come to terms with ruling itself and managing its economy and with the many social issues facing her people, as she struggled toward a new national identity.

It was during these years that The Asia Foundation first established its resident programme in Ceylon.

Hobrook Bradley was The Asia Foundation’s first representative in Ceylon in 1954. William Flemming took over in 1955, followed by Louis Lazaroff, who headed the Ceylon programme from 1959 until 1962.

From the beginning, the Foundation clearly defined its role in Sri Lanka as a supporter of local initiatives, offering to assist the government with its development efforts in the areas of education, community services, and economic development. Within these priorities, the early Foundation representatives sat down with the country’s new leaders in government, education, social services, and culture to determine ways in which the Foundation could help.

The Foundation placed great emphasis on flexibility of action and, for this reason, much of the decision-making as to how and when assistance would be provided was entrusted to the country representatives. The Foundation’s governing board felt that this also provided an additional safeguard against the unintentional imposition of pre-conceived Western solutions which may have been totally inapplicable or inappropriate to the local context.

the 1950s: a national revival

No project was considered unless it had significant local support and, as a policy, all Foundation assistance was granted on a diminishing basis, so that projects gradually moved toward self-sufficiency or sponsorship from domestic sources. As stated in an article written by the president of The Asia Foundation, Robert Blum, in 1956: “The Foundation assumes that a project which does not enjoy local acceptance and attract increasing public support should not – and in fact could not – be sustained by continued foreign assistance.”

From its inception, the Foundation worked with voluntary and community organisations that were committed to involving its members and beneficiaries in project planning and execution, long before ‘participation’ and ‘civil society’ became buzzwords of development. Areas of emphasis were youth development; social services, including those provided by women’s organisations; and programmes designed to revive the local language and cultural traditions that had languished under colonialism.

In response to the newly independent nation’s desire to build its education system, the Foundation supported institutions such as vocational schools and universities and provided grants for the development of curricula and infrastructure. In 1957, the Foundation began what was to become one of its signature programmes: the Books for Asia programme, which started to channel books and journals donated by dozens of American publishing houses and bookstores to hundreds of libraries and schools across the island. Special book collections were donated to institutions such as the Ceylon Association for the Advancement of Science, the University of Colombo, and Vidyodaya University.

“…the first years after independence were a mix of the heady euphoria of freedom and the apprehensions of a society fragmented by centuries of colonial rule.”

Facing page:1948. Ceylon celebrates her independence after more than four centuries of colonial rule.

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the 1950s: A nAtIonAl revIvAl

The Foundation’s exchange programmes offered Ceylonese professionals and leaders the opportunity to broaden their knowledge through observation tours, study programmes, and internships to the United States, while inter-Asian exchange programmes for promising Ceylonese youth helped nurture local leadership.

Individual grants tended to be in the range of US$5,000 to $10,000 – small by today’s standards but a princely sum back then. Each grant was directed for a very specific purpose and – before the age of foreign consultants and easy air travel – Foundation representatives helped each grantee make the most of the money by providing their own personal attention and advice. The personal contact that Asia Foundation representatives and staff have with Sri Lankan counterparts at all levels is one of the Foundation’s enduring and defining characteristics.

Some key organisations and projects that The Asia Foundation supported in the 1950s are revisited in this chapter. 1956. At the Jaffna Youth Council for

Social and Economic Welfare, women are offered training in handloom weaving in cooperation with the government weaving programme.

1957. A local troop of boy scouts provide a guard of honour for the chief guest, Mr. S. C. Fernando, the permanent secretary to the Ministry of Home Affairs, at the South Ceylon Youth Council members’ day.

Facing page:1957. Fun-loving youth dance the ‘baila’ at the South Ceylon Youth Council members’ day celebrations.

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The Youth Councils of Ceylon were some of the first organisations with which The Asia Foundation formed close ties. At a time when more than half the population was less than twenty-one years of age, the councils were created to provide vocational training, promote traditional arts and crafts, and help groom young men and women as productive citizens and leaders for the future. The partnership between the councils and the Foundation became a strong and enduring one, as the Foundation helped fund a wide range of council activities.

The South Ceylon Youth Council (SCYC) was set up by a group of volunteers who were working with diverse youth groups in Galle. During the fifties, the councils requested and received Foundation assistance for its training programmes ranging from farming to typewriting and printing. SCYC sponsored the running of a model dairy farm to encourage young people to engage in animal husbandry and operated a carpentry workshop which competed for government contracts, giving the young trainees an opportunity

Developing the Youth

1956. The Youth Councils of Ceylon provide training in a variety of traditional skills such as lacemaking and carpentry.

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to make money while they learned their craft. It conducted shorthand and typewriting courses in both English and Sinhala and offered training programmes in handicrafts, coir work, and handloom weaving. It also taught courses in printing and typography, and the SCYC’s prized high-speed Heidelberg press was reportedly the best press in the south of Ceylon.

Similarly, the Jaffna Youth Council received Foundation support for its courses on electrical work, woodwork and metalwork for men, and for running a weaving centre where girls were trained in handloom and needlework in cooperation with the government weaving programme.

The Ruhunu Kala Kawaya, a group of young performing artists who specialised in traditional music and dance forms, was among the cultural groups that received support from The Asia Foundation. The Foundation sponsored the annual cultural festival held by the Kawaya to showcase local talent.

Above:1956. Young men receive training in motor maintenance at a garage run by a Youth Council.

Right top and below:1957. The Ruhunu Kala Kawaya showcase traditional dance forms at an annual cultural festival sponsored by The Asia Foundation.

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Until 1956, eight years after independence, English remained the national language of Ceylon and the country continued to be ruled largely by an English-speaking elite. Many Sinhalese thought the elevation of the Sinhala language to ‘official’ status, to be used in government and official jobs, would improve their status and job prospects. In 1956, the government passed laws making Sinhala the official language of the country, with ‘reasonable use of Tamil’ in the administration of the two provinces mainly inhabited by Tamil-speaking people. This caused the existing rivalry between Sinhalese and Tamils, who had to compete for jobs, wealth, and status under colonial rule, to escalate and this single event caused serious damage to ethnic harmony in Ceylon.

One consequence of ‘Sinhala Only’ was an increase in the demand for books written in Sinhala. While Tamil publications could be imported from India, the facilities for the production of Sinhala books were limited and the production and consequently sales costs of the publications too high for the general public.

Anticipating this shortage, in 1954 The Asia Foundation supported an initiative of a small group of educators, writers, and government officials to establish a Sinhala printing press. The government showed its keen interest and the Foundation matched it with a grant to buy land, put up buildings, and equip a modern offset printing press to print books and periodicals. The establishment was called the Saman Press, named after the fragrant white jasmine flower. The press was a non-profit organisation, set up primarily to serve those who could not afford expensive reading material. The board of Saman Press, on which The Asia Foundation was also

Local Language Publications and the Saman Press

1960. The assistant government agent of the area declares open an exhibition of books by the Saman Press in Anuradhapura.

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represented, was assisted by a panel of scholars, including the Director of Cultural Affairs, professors from the University of Ceylon, and well-known writers who served on the press’ editorial board and even attended to the mundane task of editing the manuscripts before publication.

While the publications of the Saman Press were of the highest standard in terms of literary substance and print quality, it also set new standards in copyright and royalty agreements which protected the interests of the authors. Among the established authors published were such luminaries as Martin Wickremasinghe, Professor Ediriweera Sarathchandra, Gunadasa Amerasekera, K. Jayatilleke, Mahagama Sekara, T. B. Illangaratne, Dr. Siri Gunasinghe, Madawala Ratnayake, Talangama Premadasa, and Dr. Ananda Guruge. For new writers, with whose work most printers were reluctant to take a

Top:1960. Udaya magazine, produced by the Saman Press, was the first children’s periodical to be published in a local language.

Above:1960. The Saman Press building was constructed with the assistance of The Asia Foundation.

Above right:1960. An exhibition of children’s books printed at the Saman Press, held at Visakha Vidyalaya in Colombo.

chance, the Saman Press was a boon. These up and coming writers included Nandasena Ratnapala, Leel Gunasekera, S. G. Samarasinghe, Dr. A. V. Suraweera, Dr. Sarath Amunugama, and Punyakante Wijenaike.

The press also produced Sinhala translations of popular English classics as well as two monthly publications, including Udaya (Dawn), the first children’s magazine in the country, and employed its own artists to create attractive covers for their publications. Most paperbacks were priced at about two rupees.

With continued support from the Foundation, the Saman Press made a significant contribution to literary revival in the country, printing more than two and a half million volumes from 1955 to 1970.


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The Lanka Mahila Samithi (Ceylon Organisation of Women) was the most extensively organised and influential voluntary organisation in Ceylon in the 1950s. With chapters in more than one thousand villages, women were able to come together to tackle issues relating to health, childcare, and home-based industry. Volunteer organisers in each district visited village chapters regularly to assist in the work, and handicrafts produced by members were collected by the organisers and sold at a central retail outlet at the Samithi headquarters in Colombo.

In 1957, The Asia Foundation helped the Mahila Samithi add a new wing to its Kaduwela rural training centre, thus substantially increasing its capacity for training. During the fifties, the Kaduwela centre trained more than seven hundred young women in a variety of skills. A further grant enabled the Mahila Samithi to buy a Volkswagen van equipped as a multi-purpose unit for cooking demonstrations, a mobile library, the transportation of handicrafts, and film presentations. The Foundation also helped establish fifty rural

New Skills for Rural Women

demonstration centres, consisting of model kitchens, nursery schools, libraries, and playgrounds. Situated throughout the nine provinces of Ceylon, demonstration centres provided past trainees from Kaduwela an opportunity to pass on their knowledge to other rural women.

1960. A young trainee at the Mahila Samithi Training Centre.

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Above, clockwise:1955. Trainees at the Kaduwela Training Centre are taught to organise community development programmes in health, sanitation, and welfare in addition to learning specific vocational skills.

1957. A Volkswagen van donated to the Mahila Samithi by The Asia Foundation serves not only as a means of transportation, but also as a mobile library and cookery demonstration unit.

1967. Trainees at the centre are led in song by the Honorary Secretary of the Mahila Samithi.


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In the mid-fifties, The Asia Foundation was approached by the Jaffna Central Library Association — a group of private citizens including the mayor of the town, various businessmen, and education leaders who had collected two thousand volumes but did not have a suitable building to house

A Building for the Jaffna Public Library

the collection. With a grant from the Foundation, the association constructed the Jaffna Public Library, which was then linked with a group of community centres and province-wide educational projects. It soon became a dynamic and productive research centre. Undated. The historic Jaffna Public

Library building, constructed with funding from the Foundation.

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In the early fifties, some two hundred local voluntary organisations, as well as government departments such as the Department of Probation and Child Care Services and the Department of Social Services, undertook social service case work and managed homes to rehabilitate delinquent or homeless youth, the destitute, and the handicapped. But professional training for social workers was virtually non-existent and the number of formally qualified social workers in Ceylon in 1953 was recorded at just ten. That year, the Institute of Social Work was founded as an informal coordinating body to disseminate knowledge about the latest social work methods and techniques. Its committee members were drawn from many of the country’s voluntary social services organisations and the Department of Probation. The institute arranged lectures and seminars on various aspects of social work on a monthly basis, but the need for more thorough training was deeply felt.

In 1954, when Ms. Dorothy Moses of the United Nations Social Affairs Bureau visited Ceylon to conduct a

seminar for the institute, she stressed the need for a full-time course in social work. The Asia Foundation pledged its support for the endeavor and, with the assistance of Ms. Moses, the institute developed and began conducting a year-long course in modern social work methods and techniques. During its first five years, with a major portion of the funding coming from the Foundation, fifty-five social workers graduated from the institute and became active in fields directly related to their training.

Developing Social Services


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the 1960s: developing leaders, building institutions

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The country’s economic condition worsened in the second decade after independence. The income from her traditional commodity exports of tea, rubber, and coconut failed to keep pace with the steep rise in the price of food imports needed to maintain the welfare economy, and the extensive nationalisation policies of the government led to further demands on the public purse. Thus the need for more rapid broad-based economic development became a central theme of the decade. The Asia Foundation’s programme of assistance focused on developing a new generation of leaders and institutions that could help the country manage these emerging challenges.

The Asia Foundation was headed by Richard Heggie from 1962 to 1965, James Noyes from 1965 to 1968, and Richard Hendrickson from 1968 to 1970. They responded by lending the Foundation’s support to entrepreneurs and industrialists who were attempting to set up new businesses that would boost private enterprise and off-farm employment. Foundation support came in the form of funding for vocational training centres around the country and training and travel grants for entrepreneurs to visit similar enterprises overseas.

The Foundation also focused on education, identifying the tens of thousands of children who entered the school system each year in Ceylon as “a powerful national asset – the source and inspiration of the country’s future growth,” in the words of Richard Heggie. Supporting the government’s efforts to further improve the high standard of the national education system, the Foundation obtained the services of consultants to help revise school and university curricula and develop new courses. It

the 1960s: developing leaders, building institutions

Facing page: Undated. In many rural areas not yet reached by government schools, the pirivena schools run by Buddhist temples provided a basic education for thousands of children.

“…the Foundation’s programmes focused on developing a new generation of leaders and institutions…”

also provided funding for the improvement of infrastructure and teaching facilities and for books and equipment for schools and universities across the island.

In the sixties, the Foundation began its programme of

support for initiatives that promoted the rule of law and the administration of justice, which was to become a cornerstone of Foundation programmes in the decades ahead. During this period, Foundation support included the provision of a series of scholarships for legal practitioners and funding for the development and expansion of legal aid for the poor.

The Foundation continued its assistance to community service organisations, particularly those that involved and benefited youth. It also supported a variety of groups engaged in promoting arts and culture to strengthen national identity and encourage creativity. Grants were provided for the study of Ceylon’s rich history, on which little work had been done by local scholars at the time.

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Encouraged by the number of private individuals and companies interested in starting up new enterprises, The Asia Foundation supported local efforts to create businesses that were efficient and productive.

The Foundation provided grants to fifty-five small industry managers and entrepreneurs for hands-on, industry-specific training in India, Israel, Japan, and Germany. It also assisted the Productivity Association of Ceylon to develop training facilities in Ceylon, bringing in specialists to conduct lectures and seminars on management concepts encouraging a high level of productivity in both government and private enterprises.

Foundation support was extended to non-profit technical schools and vocational schools which prepared out-of-school youth to take a productive place in society. For example, grants were made to the Radio Laboratory in Colombo for the purchase of electronic testing equipment; to the Jaffna Youth Council for Social and Economic Welfare to subsidize its vocational training costs; and to the Bulutota Carpentry Training Centre, run by a Buddhist temple to provide training for unemployed rural youth, for a new workshop, tools, and an instructor.

Encouraging Entrepreneurs

Top:1956. A typewriting course conducted by the South Ceylon Youth Council. The course fees charged are minimal and just enough to cover operating costs.

Above:1968. A training centre and workshop run by a Buddhist temple in Bulutota, give unemployed youth from the tiny village an opportunity to become skilled carpenters.

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Top:1957. Aspiring electrical technicians at a training course conducted by the Jaffna Youth Council for Social and Economic Welfare.

Above and above right:1955. Young men take vocational training classes in shorthand and electronics at the Youth Council in Galle.

the 1960s: developIng leAders, BuIldIng InstItutIons

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The Asia Foundation’s Representative Richard Heggie noted in 1964: “Education is a pass-key to freedom and a better life. The challenge is to provide all Ceylonese children with a good education despite inadequacies in facilities and curricula that remained from a less demanding era.”

In 1963, the Education Department replaced the existing secondary school science syllabus with a programme that embodied modern methods of teaching biological principles, emphasizing the study of local flora and fauna and the relationship of biological sciences to the development of Ceylon’s resources. It then conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of the programme, for which the Foundation paid. Small grants were also made to support the publication of two Sinhala periodicals for school children, Kirana and Ath Kam.

The Foundation provided books and library equipment for regional schools where local community groups had constructed new libraries, and provided librarian training for more than two hundred teachers from these schools supplemented by librarian manuals printed in Sinhalese, Tamil, and English.

In many rural areas not yet reached by government schools, the pirivena schools run by Buddhist temples provided a basic education for thousands of children. The pirivena taught such secular subjects as mathematics, history, and science in addition to the traditional teaching of the dhamma. Their libraries also often served as cultural centres for the surrounding villages. The Asia Foundation assisted a number of these institutions by providing funds for books and science equipment.

Providing Resources for Education

:1966. Asia Foundation Representative James Noyes visits the site of the proposed student centre at Peradeniya University that was funded by the Foundation.

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Above:1966. A leafy canopy shades the sandy stage where two young actors play out a scene from a story book to a rapt audience.

Right:Undated. Education is highly prized in all parts of Ceylon and despite difficult economic conditions, parents are keen that children attend school.


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The Asia Foundation made available large numbers of books and teaching aids to the country’s universities, technical colleges, teacher training colleges, and libraries. Several individual scholars at the university also received Foundation grants for their research projects and scholarships for post-graduate study in the United Kingdom and United States. Among the many grants to educational institutions made in the sixties was a three-year grant to Vidyodaya University. An American professor of Physics was engaged for two years to help establish a Faculty of Science at Vinyalankara University, for which the Foundation also provided equipment and books. The Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Science at the University of Ceylon

received tools, livestock, and other materials for expanding its teaching, research, and extension services. Staff training and equipment were provided for the country’s first English-language laboratory established at the Peradeniya Teachers’ Training College. At the University of Peradeniya, and later at the University of Colombo, the Foundation provided funding for the construction of Ceylon’s first student services centres including facilities for counseling and student organisations, a multi-purpose theatre, and recreational areas.

1961. Teachers attend a residential refresher course in swabasha, or local-language teaching, conducted by the University of Peradeniya.

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To build a just society, every citizen should understand his or her rights and be able to fully utilize the protection provided by the courts. In the sixties, the legal aid programme of the Incorporated Law Society of Ceylon provided free legal counsel for thousands of citizens unable to pay lawyers’ fees. The Asia Foundation’s three-year grant enabled the society to extend this admirable programme through five provincial centres.

The Foundation provided the Colombo Law College and the Ministry of Justice with scholarships to American universities, allowing law teachers and jurists to study the U.S. legal system and its methods of adjusting to changing conditions. It also arranged visits by prominent judges from the United States to provide advice to their Ceylonese counterparts engaged in the process of legal reform.

Legal Aid Programmes and Law Scholarships

1962. Asia Foundation Representative Lou Lazaroff welcomes Judge Wyzanski during a visit to Ceylon as part of a legal reform programme.

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Supporting Community Services

1963. The Asia Foundation encouraged the work of several voluntary service organisations in Ceylon, including the Lanka Jatika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya, through which thousands of young people developed rural villages.

A central theme of The Asia Foundation’s programmes across Asia was the emphasis on assistance to voluntary social service organisations, stemming from the premise that government alone could not be responsible for community development. The Foundation believed then, as it still does today, that a considerable contribution must come from the people acting on their own initiative as individuals and through private voluntary organisations – civil society, according to the classic definition.

In Ceylon, the Foundation supported a wide range of voluntary service organisations, of which the Lanka Jatika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya was one of the most dynamic. In the sixties, thousands of students and young people contributed their skills and energies to the organisation’s 100 Villages Development project, for which the Foundation provided agricultural tools, camping equipment, and other support.

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1963. A keenly contested volleyball match at the Kelani Valley Youth Council New Year festivities.


Organisations like the Young Men’s Christian, Buddhist, and Muslim Associations, the Young Women’s Christian Association, the Ceylon Youth Council, and the Girl Guides

and Boy Scouts Associations, which were helping to prepare youth for future leadership roles, received Asia Foundation support to improve library and recreational facilities.

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1963. Youngsters take part in the Kelani Valley Youth Council’s New Year celebrations.

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In the early sixties, The Asia Foundation embarked on a programme of assistance to selected cultural projects to stimulate creativity and help to establish national identity in a highly pluralistic society.

The Foundation was supportive of education and training of Ceylonese artists. It assisted the Sinhala Institute of Culture to renovate its headquarters for use by drama and music groups for classes, rehearsals, and performances, and supported actor training courses sponsored by the institute. The Foundation also supported an experimental community theatre at the Royal Junior School in Colombo, and provided assistance to the Lionel Wendt Theatre, the Ranganath Kalaayathana, the Young Artists Group, and the Symphony Orchestra of Ceylon.

Several grants were awarded for research on Ceylonese history and art, and for preservation of ancient artifacts and manuscripts. Since no comprehensive study on Ceylon’s history had been undertaken by local scholars up to that point, the Foundation supported work on a history of Ceylon by the University of Colombo.

Promoting Cultural Activities

1957. Traditional dance forms like devil dancing pictured here, as well as music and drama were supported by The Asia Foundation during the fifties and sixties.

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the 1970s-1980s: a time to rebuild

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In the late 1960s, Cold War imperatives affected U.S. non-profits. In 1970, when South Asia-U.S. relations were strained, The Asia Foundation closed its Ceylon office.

The decade that followed saw radical changes to the country’s system of government and economic policies. Ceylon became a republic and was renamed Sri Lanka (the resplendent land). The Westminster form of government was replaced by a presidential system under a new constitution in 1978.

By 1980, the government had reversed many of the economic policies of the previous decade and embraced a more outward-looking free market model. The nationalisation of economic assets was halted and subsidies on consumer products reduced, while foreign trade and tourism were encouraged to bring in more foreign exchange. Foreign investment was promoted by setting up the country’s first free-trade zone and the rupee devalued to increase exports. In 1980, the government invited The Asia Foundation to return to Sri Lanka.

A watershed in the country’s history occurred in 1983. In the north, clashes between the country’s security forces and militant Tamil groups fighting for a separate state escalated into an angry cycle of violence, killings, and reprisals. In July 1983, anti-Tamil riots swept Colombo and the south leading to a massive loss of lives and property. The resulting polarisation of Sinhalese and Tamil communities marked the beginning of the country’s civil conflict and open warfare between the security forces and militant groups.

Mr. Frank Dines was the Foundation representative who reopened the office in 1981. John Guyer was the Foundation’s resident representative from 1982 until 1988. Vernon de Silva served as officer-in-charge for nearly a year until Nick Langton was appointed as representative in 1989.

In the 1980s the government began to realise that English could play a valuable role to help bridge the divide between the country’s ethnic

groups and help break down the socio-economic barriers that divided the haves from the have-nots. Improving the quality of English-language teaching became a high priority and, accordingly, one of the first projects the Foundation supported in the eighties was the government effort to upgrade the teaching of English language in the universities. The Foundation provided a series of consultants to the University Grants Commission for this programme. Meanwhile, the Foundation’s Books for Asia programme also re-commenced, bringing thousands of English-language publications into the country during the decade.

In 1983, the Foundation made one of its largest grants ever for an extensive series of entrepreneur training programmes conducted by Sri Lanka’s Chamber of Small Industry. During this time, the Foundation also funded many seminars that promoted the exchange of ideas on scientific and development issues which were considered to be of particular relevance to the country. Additionally, the Foundation awarded a number of study grants ranging in duration from two to twelve months to Sri Lankan professionals, to enable them to expand their knowledge in their chosen fields.

the 1970s-1980s: a time to rebuild

“In the 1980s the Foundation began to lay the groundwork for the governance and justice activities that would become the hallmark of its programme in future decades.”

Facing page: 1988. The centrepiece of Sri Lanka’s development drive of the eighties was the accelerated Mahaweli scheme, the largest development project ever undertaken in the country, designed to generate hydroelectricity and irrigate a vast extent of land.

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In the 1980s the Foundation began to lay the groundwork for the governance and justice activities that would become the hallmark of its programme in future decades. It was in 1989 that, at the request of the Ministry of Justice, the Foundation first assisted with the conceptualization of the hugely successful community mediation boards programme, for which the Foundation continues to lend its support today. The Foundation also supported the pioneering judicial and legal training initiatives of the Judges Institute of Sri Lanka and the Bar Association, as well as the legal aid services of the Legal Aid Commission and Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka’s largest non-governmental organisation.

The Foundation-supported exchange programmes sent many professionals, scholars, and students to the United States on study programmes, observation tours and in-service training, and for graduate studies. The areas of training and exposure were diverse but often focused on developing legal institutions. For example, the Foundation sponsored the participation of several lawyers from the Attorney General’s Department in the prestigious Congressional Fellows Program which places fellows in offices of the United States Congress. It organised observation tours of legal education institutions and

provided scholarships for graduate studies in the United States for members of the Faculty of Law at the University of Colombo.

During this decade, the Foundation also provided seed funding to a number of national non-governmental organisations that have since become effective and sustainable, playing important development and advocacy roles in the country.

1985. A canal constructed under the Mahaweli development scheme provides irrigation for cultivation.

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Above:Undated. The Asia Foundation provided a series of consultants to the University Grants Commission to help ensure that graduates are given a good grounding in the English language.

Right:1984. Asia Foundation Representative Edward Anderson hands over a collection of books to the Girl Guides’ library, under the Books for Asia programme.

the 1970s-1980s: A tIme to reBuIld

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In the 1980s, Sri Lanka began its efforts to re-establish English as a national language in order to enhance international communication and provide a common link between Sinhala and Tamil-speaking citizens. Consequently, the teaching of English became a priority programme area for The Asia Foundation.

In 1982, the Foundation provided the services of four consultants to the University Grants Commission (UGC) as part of a major effort to improve the standard of English teaching at the country’s nine universities. This led to the development of an intensive course in English for incoming university students and the establishment of an in-house printing press at the Colombo University to produce locally prepared texts for these courses.

Foundation support enabled the UGC to develop the ‘English for special purposes’ courses tailored to the different fields of study – for example, English for Science. The Foundation provided reference material and equipment for these courses. A three-year grant supported a model English-language course at the University of Moratuwa, which continued until the early nineties.

English-Language Teaching

1991. Asia Foundation Consultant, Ms. Quintos de Jesus, Dean of the Faculty of Art, Prof. H.N.C. Fonseka, and Asia Foundation Representative Nick Langton and Project Manager Kim McQuay at a curriculum development meeting at the University of Colombo.

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Above:1991. Students at an English class at the University of Colombo.

Right:1984. Visiting Professor of Journalism, W. Ragsdale, and Asia Foundation Representative John Guyer, at the inauguration of a workshop on journalism at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute.


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The Asia Foundation is probably best known in Sri Lanka for its Books for Asia programme, which it first began in 1954. The programme distributes millions of textbooks and reference materials donated by American publishing houses and bookstores to under-resourced libraries and schools in Asia.

Between 1957 and 1970 the Foundation had already distributed several hundreds of thousands of books throughout Sri Lanka. Books for Asia was one of the first projects that the Foundation engaged in after its return in 1980. Special collections were also donated to the Ruhunu University College, the Batticaloa University College, and the University of Moratuwa to set up brand new libraries, and the Foundation funded programmes to improve library services across the country.

Since its inception, The Asia Foundation has distributed more than 3.4 million books to thousands of public libraries, universities, technical and vocational colleges, schools, non-governmental organisations, and government institutions in the country. To this day, no similar book donation programme exists in Sri Lanka. Books for Asia annually distributes a hundred and twenty-five thousand books to nearly eight hundred institutions across all parts of the island.

With recent efforts to improve the standard of English in schools, the need has shifted toward books for primary and secondary education. The availability of high quality English books encourages more young children to start reading and helps more schools to teach English as a second language throughout the country.

Books for Asia

2003. Books donated to universities and colleges through the Books for Asia programme cover science, arts, and business subjects.

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Today, Books for Asia books can be found all over the country, from the bookshelves of the most remote village schools to the library of Sri Lanka’s parliament. These books are being used by primary school children, graduate students, professionals, librarians, and educators in every field – mathematics, engineering, social sciences, medicine, English language, arts, computer science, economics, political science, law, business management, and history.

Above:1980. Asia Foundation Representative John Guyer and Programme Director Anton Nallathamby receive the first shipment of books under the Books for Asia programme, after the Foundation resumed its work in Sri Lanka.

Above Right:1984. President J. R. Jayawardene and Mrs. Jayawardene visit Books for Asia at The Asia Foundation’s office in Colombo.


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Entrepreneurial and industrial training was another area of emphasis in the 1980s. The Asia Foundation extended its support to a variety of vocational training programmes organised by government ministries. In the Kandy District, the Foundation funded several income-generating projects for rural women created by the Women’s Bureau of the Ministry of Plan Implementation. It also funded vocational skills training programmes which included carpentry and masonry, and community leadership development

programmes organised by the Ministry of Local Government, Housing and Construction.In 1983, the Sri Lanka Chamber of Small Industry received Foundation support for a series of training programmes for new entrepreneurs. The Foundation first supported the Chamber’s activities in the sixties, and many of the key members who were now spearheading the training programme had themselves been sent overseas to study by the Foundation more than a decade ago. The programme was later transferred

Entrepreneurship and Industry

1984. Asia Foundation Representative John Guyer congratulates the president of the dynamic Sri Lanka Chamber of Small Industry, Pathmasiri Dias, and other members, for initiating an Entrepreneur Development programme for hundreds of future business men and women.

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Undated. A woman demonstrates the art of creating richly textured textiles using a hand loom.

to the newly formed Sri Lanka Business Development Centre, and continued to receive Foundation support. More than seven hundred men and women received training on how to start or improve their businesses through this initiative.

The Asia Foundation also supported the fledgling Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce, which was formed with the objective of nurturing business ventures managed by women. The businesses ranged from established business houses of the day, like Barbara Sansoni’s and Mariposa, to tiny one-woman operations like that of itinerant pillow lacemakers. In some cases, the larger-scale ventures served as mentors or business partners for the

smaller businesses. The Chamber assisted all of its members by obtaining advice and training from institutions such as the National Design Centre and the Sri Lanka Business Development Centre.


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The Asia Foundation’s long-term support for legal development is founded on the belief that a well-functioning legal system can contribute to broad-based political, economic and social development. From the eighties through to the present day, the Foundation has continued its commitment to support the individuals and institutions that could help strengthen the country’s legal system.

The Judges Institute (founded by the Ministry of Justice with funding from The Asia Foundation in 1984), prepared and conducted a series of continuing legal education programmes, seminars, and conferences for the judiciary and special workshops for junior court judges and magistrates. Similarly, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka organised training for practicing lawyers. Senior members of the profession from Colombo conducted seminars and workshops throughout the provinces thus enhancing the capacity of provincial lawyers to represent their clients. The Foundation provided financial and technical support for curriculum building and training for both these initiatives.

Law books, journals, and law reports were donated by the Foundation to the Attorney General’s departmental library, university libraries, and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka. The Foundation helped establish the Law Librarians Association, providing scholarships in legal librarianship at a California law school. It also made grants for a survey of the needs of all Sri Lankan institutional law libraries and for the implementation of a national union card catalogue for the entire country.

As part of a capacity-building programme, the Foundation provided several scholarships to the Attorney General’s Department and the Colombo University’s Law Faculty to study at premier law schools in the United States. The scholarships were tailored to meet specific needs. For example, a need for specialists in the field of constitutional law arose as Sri Lanka underwent major constitutional reforms during the eighties. The services of an American legal consultant were also provided to teach law courses and develop curricula at the Open and Colombo Universities.

Rule of Law and the Administration of Justice

1986. The president of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka receives a set of U.S. law reports from Asia Foundation Representative John Guyer.

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The Bar Association was provided with a grant to publish the first six volumes of its Law Journal and the Law Society Trust received Foundation support to assist with the production of its Law in Context publications. A popular series of legal literacy pamphlets on common legal topics created by the Women Lawyers Association were also printed in three languages with a Foundation grant and distributed throughout the island to educate citizens about their rights under the laws of the land. Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka’s largest non-governmental organisation, received Foundation support for training programmes and for its legal aid service.

1984. Members of The Law Faculty of the University of Colombo with Asia Foundation Representative John Guyer and visiting U.S. Federal Judge S. Weigel.


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the 1990s: empowering people

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The country’s civil conflict erupted afresh and expanded in the 1990s after a failed attempt by India to broker and enforce a peace plan between 1987 and 1990. A change of government occurred in 1994 but the country’s open, outward-looking economic and foreign policies remained essentially the same as during the previous decade. Despite the draining diversion of resources into defence expenditure, social and economic development activities continued, and the economy kept growing.

Richard Fuller was The Asia Foundation’s country representative from 1992 to 1993. Ed Anderson led the Foundation from 1994 to 1998 and Mark McKenna from 1998 to 2003.

In the 1990s, the Foundation deepened and broadened the governance, rule of law, and civil society strengthening programmes that it had experimented with in the previous decade. Although Sri Lanka has one of the highest literacy rates in South Asia, many of its citizens are unaware of their legal rights and obligations. The Foundation supported the efforts of several volunteer groups to produce a variety of booklets, radio programmes, and videos that explained the legal rights of every citizen. It also continued to administer a cluster of grants enabling both government and non-government organisations to provide free legal services to disadvantaged clients.

The Foundation provided valued support to the Ministry of Justice’s efforts to establish mediation as an alternative form of dispute resolution. Since 1988 the mediation boards programme has provided a great service to local communities. The mediation boards were initially conceived as a strategy to reduce court delay but has since

emerged as a highly effective strategy for managing and resolving personal conflicts. The problem of court delay was addressed at several levels, by training judges and lawyers, and supporting court computerization to help judges manage their dockets and provide better information on pending court cases to lawyers and litigants.

From the early nineties, progressive government and private sector leaders

were beginning to recognize the need for long-term strategies to protect the nation’s environmental resources. Environmental management and conservation became an entry-point for citizen participation in governance and policy-making. Through its participation in the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Program of the United States Agency for International Development, the Foundation supported the efforts of non-governmental and community-based organisations and citizen’s groups to raise public awareness of environmental issues and to design and implement some of the country’s first community-based resource management projects.

The NGO-Business Environmental Partnership programme of the United States-Asia Environmental Partnership (US-AEP) was launched in 1995. Administered by The Asia Foundation, the programme encouraged non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to move beyond their traditional adversarial role with the private sector and work in collaboration with business to bring cleaner technology and improved environmental management to industry, and integrate clean production with profitable business practices.

Asia Foundation support was also directed at creating a professional, independent media as a vital institution of democracy. The Foundation supported the media through

“...the Foundation deepened and broadened its governance, rule of law, and civil society strengthening programmes...”

the 1990s: empowering people

Facing page: 1997. Subgrants provided under the Foundation’s Women’s Economic and Legal Rights programme to organisations such as Agromart Foundation enabled women micro-entrepreneurs, like this vegetable seller in the Kurunegala District, gain economic and legal literacy through specially targeted awareness programmes.

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the ‘90s: legAl AId, Women’s empoWerment And envIronmentAl protectIon

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training and education programmes for journalists, and by supporting alternative publications and radio and television programming. In 1993, the Foundation supported the establishment of the Centre for Policy Research and Analysis (CEPRA) at the University of Colombo to improve the quality of public policy information and analysis. In 1996, the Foundation began a Women’s Economic and Legal Rights programme that helped several local women’s groups join forces to advocate for women’s rights. They set in motion a range of activities, like the formation of effective collectives that helped women work together to overcome obstacles they faced in growing their small businesses. Even more encouraging, the success of the pilot projects supported through this programme spurred women’s organisations in other areas of the country to launch similar initiatives.

In 1997, the Foundation’s long running Books for Asia programme was extended to war-stricken areas in the north and east of the island, and many schools in these

areas were provided with hundreds of books to revive their depleted collections. The Jaffna Public Library also received the first of nearly three thousand volumes to restock its bookshelves.

Above:1997. Members of the Empowered Women’s Forums, formed throughout the Moneragala District by the Vehilihini Development Centre, complete a power mapping group exercise during an advocacy training programme.

Facing page top:1997. In a village in Ritigala, members of the local community are trained in the preparation of herbal medicines from plants they cultivate. Their help was also enlisted to protect the medicinal plants within the strict natural reserve.

Facing page bottom:1998. Home-based women workers in the Mahaweli ‘H’ Zone are among the many beneficiaries of the empowerment programmes supported by the Foundation in the 1990s.

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the 1990s: empoWerIng people

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Throughout the nineties, The Asia Foundation’s law programme extended its support to local non-governmental legal aid organisations such as Lawyers for Human Rights and Development to facilitate the provision of legal services to several thousand disadvantaged clients. The Foundation worked closely with the Sarvodaya Legal Services Movement, which provides a vital service to communities and individuals who are unable to afford legal aid through the usual channels. Sarvodaya educates citizens about their rights and helps them protect those rights. The Foundation provided funding for library facilities at the Sarvodaya centre, as well as for the training of volunteers to organise and operate two thousand rural libraries and a model mobile library.

Foundation support in 1994 enabled the Legal Aid Commission to establish regional legal aid centres throughout the country. Each staffed by a lawyer and a clerk who are available for consultation five days a week, the centres are located in provincial towns, generally close to the local courts complex. They provide free legal advice and legal representation in both civil and criminal cases to people with monthly incomes of less than fifty dollars. Centres work closely with rural non-governmental organisations to conduct legal literacy programmes and to receive potential client referrals. At the time of writing, the centres, which now number forty-seven, have handled more than thirty thousand cases.

The Foundation also supported the development of the country’s first university-based, legal-aid clinics conducted by the Open University, and supported efforts to improve legal literacy and promote a broader awareness of human rights.

Legal Aid

1990. Sarvodaya Founder and President Dr. A T Ariyaratne and Director Sarvodaya Legal Services Dr. Jehan Perera discuss the organisation’s legal aid programme with Asia Foundation Representative Nick Langton.

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Women In Need (WIN), established in 1988 with the support of The Asia Foundation, is a pioneer among Sri Lankan non-governmental organisations committed to the elimination of domestic violence and all forms of violence against women. WIN operates crisis centres with drop-in facilities in Colombo, Matara, and Kandy, as well as a counseling service and a shelter. In the year 2000, the Foundation provided the services of local and international consultants to assist WIN with a strategic planning exercise to maximize the impact and reach of its activities. The Foundation also assisted WIN in its efforts to provide legal assistance to women victims of violence and ensure that these

women were able to gain access to justice and enforce their rights. WIN has handled approximately fifty thousand cases to date.

In 1996, the Foundation commissioned a baseline study on access to the legal system in Sri Lanka, where it was found that the majority of those surveyed did not know how to access legal aid. In 1997, the Foundation supported the creation of the Consortium of Legal Aid Organisations to bring together organisations providing legal aid and conducting legal rights awareness so that they could network, share information, and collectively publicise, improve, and coordinate the provision of their services.1990. Representatives of local legal

aid organisations, Women in Need, and Lawyers for Human Rights and Development, conduct seminars to educate various segments of civil society about the legal rights of every citizen.


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The Community Mediation Boards programme, set up through the Ministry of Justice and Law Reform and the Mediation Boards Commission, has been one of the great success stories of the Sri Lankan justice system, and The Asia Foundation has been an enthusiastic partner in this process since its very inception. In the late eighties, the Foundation organised observation tours to the United States for the Secretary to the Ministry of Justice, and other officials from the Ministry who

were instrumental in designing the mediation system and drafting the Mediation Boards Act of 1988. In 1989, the Foundation provided technical training for the very first group of twenty-five mediator trainers, who went on to train hundreds of volunteer mediators during the following years.

With Sri Lanka’s courts burdened under a growing backlog of cases and many citizens of rural Sri Lanka still somewhat intimidated by the formalities of the legal system,

1990. Sarvodaya educates people about their legal rights and provides free legal counsel to disadvantaged litigants.

Mediation Boards

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community mediation proved to be a popular, accepted, and accessible alternative for dispute resolution. The aim of the mediation boards is to bring together feuding parties and help them to move away from the winner-loser mindset to find some middle ground and come to a mutually acceptable settlement of their dispute. The agreements are simply an understanding between the two parties and are not legally binding, but rather a way to solve the issue while allowing both parties to save face and continue to be able to live side-by-side in society. In this way, the boards perform an invaluable service by putting an end to disputes that could otherwise lead to feuds, which in turn could embitter generations.

The two hundred and seventy-three mediation boards now in operation are made up exclusively of volunteers – retired teachers, professionals, village elders – who are educated, well-respected, civic-minded individuals, willing to volunteer their time in the interest of their community. Every weekend, the boards sit in classrooms and community halls across the country to do their work. The majority of disputes that are brought for mediation are resolved within three months, and the number of disputes successfully resolved now stands at more than 1.8 million.

2007. Hundreds of disputes are resolved every weekend at mediation board sittings like these held in Nuwara Eliya and Gampola.


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Promoting Citizen Participation in Environmental Management

The USAID Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Program (NAREPP) was designed to increase public awareness and knowledge of environmental issues and improve natural resource management in Sri Lanka through the development of community-level and national-level non-governmental and community-based organisations.

As one of the implementing agencies for NAREPP, The Asia Foundation provided institutional and project assistance to more than twenty small environmental NGOs, such as the Environmental Foundation Ltd (EFL). Founded in 1982 as a wholly volunteer organisation, EFL received its first Asia Foundation grant in 1991 to establish an environmental law library. Since then, the Foundation has provided much support for the NGO’s efforts to strengthen its institutional capacity, and EFL has grown into the leading environmental law organisation in Sri Lanka, combining the expertise of environmental scientists and skilled environmental lawyers to represent the public interest in the protection

of the environment. In 1991, EFL established an environmental legal aid clinic to advise local communities on their legal rights and undertake litigation and mediation of environmental disputes. It also provided crucial input for the drafting of Sri Lanka’s environmental impact assessment laws, which allow for public comment before a major project is approved. It has since provided expert comment and criticism on environmental impact statements on some the country’s largest development projects.

Other environmental NGOs that benefited from the programme are leading advocates in environmental education, journalism and communication, mangrove and upland reforestation, urban pollution control, community-based resource management, and biodiversity conservation. These include the Institute for Alternative Development & Regional Cooperation, Sri Lanka Environmental Journalists Forum, Sri Lanka Environment Congress, March for Conservation,

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EMACE Foundation, Sri Lanka National Mangroves & Coastal Habitat Conservation, Organization to Safeguard Life and Environment, and the National Development Foundation.

The Foundation was also involved in the design and implementation of pilot community-based resource management (CBRM) projects where local communities were actively involved in the decision-making as well as the implementation of strategies for environmental conservation and resource management.

In one such project, the objective was to help villages in Kahalle-Pallakelle – where human settlers and herds of wild elephants were forced by circumstance to share the same habitat – to better manage the human-elephant conflict, which was taking a heavy toll in terms of injury and deaths of both people and elephants, and destruction of houses and crops. A variety of strategies were adopted by the villagers, including changes to the traditional ‘chena’ agricultural practice. Instead of each family clearing and planting a discreet area in the forest, wedge-shaped agricultural plots were marked out radiating from a single point, allowing an entire village’s crops to grow within a single circular boundary. All the villagers then agreed to cooperate to protect this boundary, leaving the elephants a larger area of uncultivated land in which to roam. Other strategies included storing grain

1993. The Asia Foundation works with local non-governmental organisations to engage the local community to devise strategies to reduce the intensity of the human-elephant conflict in Kahalla-Pallakelle.


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away from village houses in central storage huts surrounded by deep ditches, and digging water holes in the forest for elephants so that they would not need to come to the village tank for water. As a result of these and other initiatives taken by the villagers during the three-year pilot project, the number of houses destroyed by elephants each year gradually reduced from seventy-nine to zero, and the hectares of crops damaged from nine hundred and fifty-one to six. No further lives were lost.

Other successful CBRM projects included initiatives to promote sustainable use of medicinal herbs and conserve knowledge related to traditional medicine in communities around the Ritigala strict natural reserve, and the conservation of the Horton Plains national park. In both areas, the ecology was threatened by endemic plant species being removed for sale. During the

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Facing page:Undated. The Ritigala Strict Natural Reserve is home to a variety of rare medicinal plants that are endemic to the mountain.

Above, clockwise:1995. Community leaders meet with officials to discuss how the community can become involved in the protection of Horton Plains.

1995. An awareness campaign aims to stop littering of the park.

Undated. A view of the Plains.

1996. Project officers from The Asia Foundation and Environmental Foundation Ltd. monitor mangrove conservation efforts in Chilaw. 1996. Fishermen in Chilaw’s mangrove-lined waterways


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project, villagers were educated about the importance of these habitats and their cooperation was sought in order to protect the area from poachers. Environmental profiles of the areas were prepared to enable stakeholders to create long-term conservation strategies. In Ritigala, local communities were provided with training and raw material to engage in alternative income-generating activities such as propagation of medicinal plants, preparation of ayurvedic medicines, organic agriculture, and animal husbandry. The Horton Plains project also focused on reforesting degraded areas with native tree species by local communities and keeping the park free from litter.

Among other CBRM projects were: the prevention of coastal degradation in the Batticaloa district and the coastline from Waikkal to Mundal with the involvement of environmental committees of fishermen, school children, and women; the conservation of forest patches in Ratnapura; and the restoration of mangrove belts around lagoons in Mundal, Puttalam, and Negombo.

Pilot urban environmental programmes focused on two slum communities in Obeysekerapura, Kotte, and Dandeniyawatte, Moratuwa. These initiatives included the regularisation of land ownership and the promotion of community management of infrastructure, such as water supply, garbage disposal, and water sanitation.

Top:1994. Regularising land ownership and basic infrastructure for slum communities in Obeysekerapura Kotte and Dandeniyawatte, Moratuwa.

Above:1995. Former President of The Asia Foundation, Dr. William Fuller, visits a slum community in Dandeniyawatte, Moratuwa.

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A Different Approach to a Cleaner Environment

The NGO-Business Environmental Partnership programme was designed to transform the adversarial relationship between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the private sector into productive partnerships, and promote collaboration instead of confrontation. Under this programme, the NGOs, and their chosen industrial partners, defined joint objectives and worked together to seek practical solutions to environmental problems while preserving and often improving profitability.

Examples of the type of initiatives and the partnerships formed to tackle them include: a project of HELP-O in collaboration with Galle Municipal Council to manage the solid waste generated by the Karapitiya Hospital; a study to improve the use of resources through technological improvements in bakeries in Dehiwela by the Community Environmental Protection Organisation and its industrial partner for the project, the New Broadway Group; and a project to manage the waste generated by the central fish and

2005. With the involvement of HELP-O and the Galle Municipal Council, solid waste generated by the Karapitiya Hospital in Galle is sorted and paper and glass sent for recycling. Organic waste is used to produce compost and bio-gas.


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vegetable market in Chilaw by the Wayamba Govi Sanwardena Padanama, in partnership with the Chilaw Traders Association and the Chilaw Urban Council. Other projects included the reduction of solid waste and liquid effluent from auto repair shops by the Community Development Solidarity Organisation, Kodagoda Motors, and Auto-Galle Trade Association; and a project for efficient treatment of waste and minimization of liquid effluent from the rubber processing industry, implemented by the Society for People-Centred Development, and its partner, Lalan Rubber Industries Ltd.

In another initiative to promote environmental awareness, the Wayamba Integration for Growth and Sustainability trained groups of senior students from six schools to monitor and record ambient air quality, noise pollution, and water quality in the towns of Kurunegala, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, and Colombo. In a bid to stop the vast amounts of polythene waste that is generated by pilgrims who visit Kataragama during the annual festival season, the Vehilihini Development Centre joined the Empowered Women’s Forum of Kataragama and the Kataragama Pradeshiya Sabha to ask visitors to exchange the polythene bags they were carrying for paper and jute bags that were provided free of charge.

2005. A signboard at a major intersection in Nuwara Eliya measures local air quality. School children are trained to monitor ambient air quality at a central bus stand in Nuwara Eliya. The equipment for the project was provided by The Asia Foundation and training by the Wayamba Integration for Growth and Sustainability.

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A professional, independent media is an important component of vibrant democracies. In the nineties however, training opportunities for Sri Lankan journalists were extremely limited, particularly for those who worked outside Colombo. The Asia Foundation stepped in to support an initiative by the Open University to offer a multilingual distance education training programme in journalism. During its first year, the Foundation-supported pilot programme provided practical training to more than a hundred and seventy-five journalists and media professionals through the Open University’s network of regional campuses and study centres. The response to the initiative was overwhelming and the number of applicants swelled to three hundred the year after. The programme became part of the Open University’s formal curriculum and drew the attention and support of newspaper editors. Based on the enthusiastic response to the certificate programme, the University of Colombo went on to develop the country’s first undergraduate degree programme in journalism.

With Foundation support, the Open University also provided mid-career training to practising journalists, while institutions such as the Marga Institute conducted a series of seminars for journalists on politics, environmental management, and economic liberalisation, with emphasis on the importance of responsible and ethical reporting of sensitive issues such as those involving ethnic conflict.

The Foundation also supported a range of media initiatives that would result in expanding both sources of information and the reach of the media. For example, it supported the publication of Dinithi, a women’s magazine published by the Agromart Foundation aimed at helping to inform rural women about issues of national importance and increasing their awareness of gender issues; Vikalpa, an alternative Sinhalese magazine published by The Lanka Guardian; and the Kandy News, a community newspaper published

Strengthening the Media

1996. Dinithi, a women’s magazine published by the Agromart Foundation raises awareness of gender issues.


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for the Kandy district by Media Vision Pvt Ltd. It also helped finance a pilot television series on citizen’s views produced by Precision Productions and an interactive radio programme for micro-entrepreneurs produced by the Centre for Private Sector Development.

Efforts by the Centre for Policy Alternatives to improve the legal and regulatory environment for the media were also supported by The Asia Foundation.

The Foundation supported the establishment of the Centre for Policy Research and Analysis at the University of Colombo to improve the quality of information on public policy and analysis available to the public. The centre’s initial research and publications focused on constitutional and electoral reform and the role of provincial councils under the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. The Foundation also provided support to the Parliament Secretariat to expand its research and information systems.

2008. The Kandy News was Sri Lanka’s first regional newspaper. It was founded in 1994 with Asia Foundation support.

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The objective of The Asia Foundation’s Women’s Legal and Economic Rights (WELR) programme in Sri Lanka was to develop the capacity of specific groups of rural women to advocate for their social and economic rights. The programme focused on two informal sectors where women faced many disadvantages. It was implemented in different areas of the country through three non-governmental partner organisations, while the Centre for Women’s Research (CENWOR) coordinated the programme and provided training on advocacy and social mobilisation.

Fighting for Their Rights

The Vehilihini Development Centre (VDC) began in 1985 as a welfare organisation for women widowed as a result of the civil conflict in Moneragala District. Through the WELR programme, its membership was expanded to include other women (not just war widows) and its activities were broadened to include advocacy for economic and legal rights.

Empowering Rural Women

1997. Empowered Women’s Forum members plan out the stages of an advocacy campaign for the Vehilihini Development Centre.


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One of the main aims of the WELR programme was to promote the reform of laws governing state development land (such as the Mahaweli settlement land) to enable women to obtain equal rights to inheritance and ownership of property. CENWOR drafted an amendment to the Land Development Ordinance on inheritance. Women from the VDC joined other WELR partners to plan and implement an advocacy campaign to pass this amendment. Thanks to these efforts, a regulation is now in operation at the divisional level that gives women the same rights as men to inherit state land.

Other efforts of the group have included lobbying and activism against the politicisation of state assistance programmes and violence against women.

1997. Women heads of households, who have been cultivating land without legal ownership in many areas of the Mahaweli, now have equal rights to ownership and inheritance due to legislative reform spearheaded by Vehilihini Development Centre and the Centre for Women’s Research.

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The Legal Watch Committees Take Charge

The Agromart Foundation focused on women from three villages in the Mahaweli settlement programme (System H). The women’s committees evolved over time into community action groups known as Legal Watch Committees, which include some men. This made collective action more effective and helped the groups to gain acceptance in their communities. With advocacy skills and techniques gained under the WELR programme the committees were able to jointly address several issues that were creating problems within their communities.

1998. Women coir producers save for a rainy day through a special savings group that meets weekly and rotates beneficiaries.

For example, the committees persuaded the village benevolence societies, on which every family depends in times of need, to penalise members who abuse alcohol. This unusual strategy proved to be a very effective deterrent to alcohol-related violence. The committees stopped the illegal felling of timber in their areas by overriding area officers, who are often in league with local politicians engaged in these activities, and forwarded complaints directly to higher authorities. To address another community issue, the committees worked with local government officials to help displaced people obtain identity documents needed for access to facilities, such as education


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for children. The Legal Watch Committees proactively intervene in cases of violence against women and especially domestic violence, to ensure that the cases are properly dealt with by relevant authorities. They have also organised collective campaigns to raise awareness on domestic violence.

Since its inclusion in the WELR programme, the women’s magazine published by Agromart Foundation has devoted several pages to the economic and legal rights of women and helped to focus attention on issues faced by women in the coir industry and women farmers in Mahaweli settlements. This was further reinforced by radio programmes and video films that were aired on national media channels.

A New Direction for Women in the Coir Industry

The Siyath Foundation worked with women engaged in the coir industry in four villages in the Southern Province. The cottage industry of making coir rope uses traditional labor-intensive methods and the majority of those engaged in the industry were older women, who earned little for their efforts. The Siyath Foundation selected twenty young women, who were trained by CENWOR to act as facilitators of the programme. The facilitators helped the women in the villages to organise into small groups and then into a larger collective, gradually gaining the confidence to become proactive in tackling issues of concern to members.

Before the input of the WELR programme, the women produced

1998. The potential benefits of increased earnings, savings schemes, and lucrative skills development available with the coir collectives has attracted many young women to the coir trade.

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1998. The benefits of organizing women home-based workers is most clearly evident on pay-day when they receive their monthly earnings from direct coir sales.

only two types of rope or mats, stockpiled these items in a store, and waited for the stocks to be bought by middlemen before producing more. With the assistance of the Siyath Foundation, representatives of the collective visited several coir factories, met with buyers, and learned about the different grades of rope. They acquired the knowledge to expand their range of products and organised a quality control group who would pass on feedback from the buyers. By the year 2000, the collective produced six types of rope. They had established nine regular buyers, and were selling as much as they could produce. Each woman’s income had increased ten-fold and family incomes were further improved by the willingness of youth

to take up this lucrative activity.

The success of the women in these pilot programmes has been a source of encouragement to women in other parts of the country and the Siyath Foundation was granted additional funding from the Government of the Netherlands to expand their activities in six other villages.


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the 2000s: resolving conflict

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Throughout its long association with Sri Lanka, The Asia Foundation’s programmes have been structured to help Sri Lankans meet the key challenges of their time. Today these are the challenges of cementing a durable peace between all ethnic groups in the country, while working toward national development goals.

Over the past twenty-five years, Sri Lanka’s conflict has caused untold suffering and taken a terrible toll on lives as well as on the country’s economy. The decade has seen the rise and fall of another peace process between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and the conflict escalate into an all-out war that ended in 2009.

The country now faces the new challenge of healing the deep wounds of war and rebuilding the lives of the hundreds of thousands of civilians who were caught up in the conflict, and bringing in the legal and procedural changes that will safeguard the rights of all its citizens.

The Asia Foundation has strategically aligned its programme to support governmental and civil society initiatives to meet the overarching need of present day Sri Lanka: the need to build a foundation for lasting peace. During this decade the Foundation supported efforts to improve access to justice; strengthen democratic local governance and citizen participation; protect human rights; and resolve conflict.

Nilan Fernando became the Foundation’s country representative in 2003.

By working to improve access to justice, through support for mediation, legal empowerment, and language training, the Foundation and its local partners are attempting to reduce community tensions resulting from diverse disparities such as ethnic discrimination, poverty, and lack of equal access to resources and processes.

In the area of human rights education, monitoring, and enforcement, the Foundation has supported a wide range of initiatives with special emphasis on vulnerable groups such as communities in conflict areas, internally displaced persons, prisoners, and victims of crime.

While most of the economic development in Sri Lanka is geographically concentrated in the Western Province, it is the country’s myriad small and medium enterprises (SMEs) scattered across the island that hold the key to creating more broad-based economic growth. The Foundation has been working with local authorities and chambers of industry and commerce to help provide these SMEs with the vital infrastructure and the regulatory environment that would allow them to thrive.

Another important initiative is the Foundation’s work with local authorities, provincial councils, and relevant central authorities to improve the effectiveness of local government bodies and demonstrate that with more resources and authority they can bring tangible benefits to citizens. Foundation technical assistance and training has improved service delivery and revenue collection by local authority staff, helped to document and replicate

the 2000s: resolving conflict

Facing page: 2000. Schoolgirls enjoy playing on a beach bathed in the golden glow of the setting sun.

“…The Asia Foundation has strategically aligned its programme to support governmental and civil society initiatives to meet the overarching need of present day Sri Lanka: the need for building the foundations to support a lasting peace.”

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good practices, and built public demand and political support for policy reforms that will delegate more responsibility and authority for government functions to the provincial and local authorities.

The 2004 tsunami that wreaked havoc on the eastern and southern coastline of Sri Lanka destroying lives, homes, and livelihoods on an unprecedented scale, overshadowed all else in the months following the disaster. As the water receded to reveal the rubble of broken lives, Sri Lankans of all ethnicities came together in a spontaneous outpouring of generosity to help the thousands in need, offering a fleeting insight into what a harmonious Sri Lanka could accomplish.

In the aftermath of the tsunami, The Asia Foundation was in a unique position to respond due to its on-the-ground presence and long-established network of friends and partners. The Foundation responded with immediate relief, using donations that it and its affiliate Give2Asia received from individuals, corporations, and donor agencies. In doing so, it joined a host of humanitarian and relief agencies that came to Sri Lanka’s aid. However, it was in the long-range recovery and reconstruction where the Foundation was able to make its

Above:2008. The Foundation’s mobile libraries each stocked with books, educational DVDs, and a multimedia setup, provided much-needed teaching material to tsunami-affected communities.

Facing page: 2005. The Asian tsunami ravaged Sri Lanka’s southern and eastern coastline and made whole communities destitute. Through the Small Business Recapitalisation Project funded by Give2Asia, the Foundation was able to help hundreds of families get back on their feet by restarting the businesses they had lost.

most significant contribution. Among the key initiatives were: provision of grants to help revive small businesses; mobilisation of local governments and communities to guide reconstruction investments into areas of highest priority; and provision of mental health services for traumatised people.

In recent years, the Foundation in Sri Lanka has evolved from its early role of being principally a grant-maker, to providing a more holistic service. Members of its staff have the experience and technical expertise to be valuable resources in their own right. This has resulted in programme staff being called upon to provide training and advice on broader development issues. It has also meant that they provide invaluable input into the formulation of the programmes that the Foundation undertakes in the country.

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the 2000s: resolvIng conflIct

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Continuing its rule of law and legal aid work from the 1990s, the Access to Justice programmes enable public institutions, non-governmental and civil society organisations to help citizens overcome fundamental challenges in seeking redress and resolving conflict. Asia Foundation programmes are centred on mediation, legal empowerment, and language rights.

Promoting Mediation

Building on the support to the community mediation boards, the Foundation supported the setting up of the non-governmental Centre for Mediation and Mediation Training, the first of its kind in Sri Lanka, to provide mediation skills training to community organisations and the mediation boards of the Ministry of Justice which has a shortage of trainers.

In the aftermath of the tsunami, the Foundation supported the creation of Tsunami Special Mediation Boards to address disputes which arose regarding land and compensation during the rebuilding phase. With Foundation assistance, the ministry was also able to set up mediation boards in the Northern and Eastern provinces including, for the first time, nine boards in Jaffna. The Foundation supported training and the production of Tamil-language resource materials and mediation training for mediators in these areas.

At the time of writing, there are two hundred and seventy-three mediation boards throughout the country and nearly six thousand mediators, all of whom have benefited from Foundation-supported training and technical assistance.

Increasing Access to Justice

Top:2005. A legal clinic in Ampara provides advice and assistance for those who lost identification documents and land deeds in the tsunami.

Above:2007. The Foundation has supported training for more than 5,800 mediators since the mediation boards programme began in 1989.

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Facilitating Legal Empowerment

The Asia Foundation’s legal empowerment initiative provides vulnerable communities with opportunities to gain the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to safeguard their legal rights and improve their well-being. Through its support for paralegal training, mediation, advocacy, and networking, the programme supports systems that enable community action and ensure access to law enforcement and public offices, dispute resolution systems, and community support networks.

Ending Language Barriers

In parts of Sri Lanka, language barriers prevent interaction and communication between local communities and government officials. To address this issue,

and with financial support from the Government of the United Kingdom, the Foundation provides language training programmes for court staff, civil servants, and the police force in multi-ethnic areas. For example, thirteen Tamil-speaking officers from the Sri Lanka Police Higher Training Institute were trained as Tamil-language instructors using a special curriculum developed by a panel consisting of representatives of the Police Department, the Official Languages Department, language training experts from the University of Colombo, and Asia Foundation staff. Trainees learned how to communicate with civilians in situations that are likely to arise in day-to-day policing. The instructors have already conducted training programmes for one hundred and sixty police officers and are now teaching officers at district-level training centres around the country. Similarly, more than three hundred

2006. Women community leaders attend a legal literacy workshop in Ranna.


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government servants and two hundred court officials have received language training under this initiative. The Foundation is also funding the implementation of recommendations from language audits of government departments.

Legal Reform

At the request of Sri Lanka’s Law Commission, the Foundation assisted the formulation of the first-ever law in Sri Lanka guaranteeing the rights of witnesses and victims of crime. The legislation establishes a National Authority for the Protection of Victims of Crime and Witnesses, which will be responsible for monitoring the enforcement of the new law, codifying the specific rights of victims and witnesses of crime while providing new protection for both, imposing tough penalties for retribution against victims and witnesses, and establishing a special fund for compensating and protecting them.

2006. Tamil-language training for the Police Department helps to eliminate the language barriers between local communities and police personnel serving in Tamil-speaking communities.

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Helping to Advance the Rights of Muslim Women

mainstream Muslim values including human rights, tolerance, and democracy. In 2006, the Foundation provided assistance to the Muslim Women’s Research and Action Forum to organise a national symposium on the basic challenges facing Muslim women in Sri Lanka. It provided an excellent forum for a cross-section of Muslim academics, non-governmental organisation activists, and a group of young men and women to openly discuss a wide range of issues of importance to Sri Lankan Muslims.

The Asia Foundation has supported efforts to expand the rights of Muslim women within the Islamic framework by facilitating dialogue between men and women leaders, clerics, and scholars. The programme included study tours to Indonesia and Malaysia – countries that have pursued a progressive agenda toward women’s rights, and discussions with visiting scholars. The programme has created a unique and important regional network of influential Muslim leaders who are committed to advancing

2006. The Asia Foundation staff and participants at a national convention organised to address the issues faced by Muslim women.

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Increasing respect for human rights and helping to safeguard those rights is an integral part of The Asia Foundation’s programmes and it has consistently supported local efforts to strengthen human rights in Sri Lanka.

In 1998, the Foundation supported the establishment of Sri Lanka’s first-ever multi-disciplinary, non-governmental organisation-based diploma programme on human rights geared to non-academic professionals and activists. The course is run by the Institute of Human Rights in Sinhala, Tamil, and English.

The Foundation has also supported a wide range of initiatives in the area of human rights monitoring and enforcement.

In 1999, The Asia Foundation assisted the Colombo-based Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) and the Institute of Human Rights to create a network linking by email five districts in the north and east with a secretariat in Colombo to assist people living in conflict areas. From local offices in Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee,

Vavuniya, and Jaffna, information is shared on individual and community problems of residents in those areas. The CHA worked with government departments and humanitarian agencies to ensure that each reported case received a consistent, timely, and concrete response.In another Foundation-assisted networking initiative, the Prisons Forum was created by a group of legal aid organisations bringing together all partners who undertook routine prison visits and handled the cases of remand prisons. The forum helped coordinate medical and welfare support for prisoners and reviewed cases of long detention

Protecting Human Rights

2001. Asia Foundation Representative Mark McKenna speaks at the launch of the human rights educators training kit that was distributed to trained educators from over twenty local non-governmental organisations.

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in prisons where due process had failed. The Legal Aid Commission of Sri Lanka set up its own legal aid clinic at the Welikada Prison.

The Foundation helped the Community Trust Fund (CTF) in Puttalam in its efforts to highlight the situation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sri Lanka, particularly the status of the displaced Muslim community forcibly evicted from Jaffna. Working closely with the Centre for Policy Alternatives, the CTF has sought to establish the rights and privileges of IDPs as citizens of Sri Lanka through appropriate legal action before the Human Rights Commission and the Supreme Court.

The Foundation also played a pivotal role in improving the understanding and technical capacity of state and non-state organisations on forensic investigation methods when it helped bring together local and foreign forensic experts, and representatives from the Attorney General’s Department, the Criminal Investigations Department, and international human rights organisations, to collaborate on the exhumation of the alleged mass graves at Chemmani Jaffna in 1999.

In 2000, the Foundation funded the publication of a training manual and training workshops for one thousand seven hundred teachers from nearly three thousand schools to introduce a non-formal human rights education module for senior students in all secondary schools. It also helped produce a human rights manual to be used by a network of trained human rights educators from more than twenty local organisations.

In 2002, the Foundation assisted the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Colombo to establish and operate a 24-hour human rights and legal rights hotline. The Foundation also assisted the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka to establish a special unit to streamline the review, analysis, and resolution of eleven thousand pending complaints; helped develop and implement software to facilitate human rights monitoring; and provided technical assistance and training for human rights organisations to create and maintain databases for the documentation and analysis of political violence based on common definitions and standards of reliability.

2008. The Foundation has supported the Community Trust Fund’s work with internally displaced persons in Puttalam.

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Since 2005, The Asia Foundation has supported diverse local organisations involved in trying to reduce human rights abuses in Sri Lanka through legal research, public outreach, and advocacy to influence policy. These include the Law and Society Trust, Right to Life Human Rights Centre, Janasansadaya (People’s Forum), Social and Economic Development Centre Survivors Associated, Dharana Alternative Drama Art Collective, and Namel Malini Punchi Theatre. It has also helped partner organisations such as the Family Rehabilitation Centre, Shanthiham Association for Health and Counseling, and Social and Economic Development Centre, to provide more effective culturally

appropriate psychosocial treatment, including counseling, medical care, physiotherapy, and other essential services, to help victims of armed conflict and their families.

2008. The Community Trust Fund works to establish the rights and privileges of displaced people such as these Muslims who were evicted from Jaffna due to conflict.

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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) constitute a significant portion of Sri Lanka’s economy. In order to create more broad-based economic growth, it is vital that SMEs are provided with the infrastructure and regulatory environment to thrive.

To achieve this, The Asia Foundation has, with support from the Australian Agency for International Development and the Department for International Development (UK), been facilitating engagement and cooperation between the private sector and local government in nineteen localities around the country. Research and surveys have identified specific barriers to private sector growth that government is in a position to change. The Foundation facilitated public-private dialogues to discuss these barriers in more depth and created working groups comprising local business and government leaders to follow up. The working groups meet every month to discuss issues affecting local businesses and work toward implementing solutions.

Initially the working groups focused on quick wins – such as street cleanups and improved communications. As they mature, they are also developing action plans for projects that require more specific skills and resources to address more complex and deep-rooted problems. The Foundation supports the working groups by providing support for research on local economic problems and training in advocacy and how to facilitate group discussions to make them more results-oriented.

Improving the Business Environment

Top:2008. A working group meeting of the Central Province Government Business Development Forum, is chaired by the Mayor of Kandy.

Above:2007. At a street cleanup campaign launched jointly by the Kurunegala Municipal Council and the business community of the area, council officials and business people work side by side toward a common goal of keeping the city clean.


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Toward Effective Local Government

2001. The Asia Foundation has helped local government authorities improve the delivery of basic services like garbage collection.

The Asia Foundation works with local councils and the relevant central authorities to improve local governance in order to demonstrate that local government can be effective, democratic, transparent, and accountable, and that elected local authorities can bring tangible benefits to citizens.

It has done this in three ways: first, by providing training and technical support to strengthen the capacity of local authority staff; second, by replicating good practices through documentation and dissemination, conducting seminars, developing good governance resource centres, and strengthening associations and networks; and third, by building public demand and political support for improved local governance and for policy reforms that will delegate more responsibility and authority for government functions to the provincial and local levels.

The Foundation has formed partnerships with thirty-five local government authorities (Pradeshiya sabhas, urban and municipal councils) in six provinces to demonstrate models of effective local

governance. After the tsunami, the programme activities enabled local government and communities to work together to meet the challenges of post-tsunami recovery.

In 2006, a guidebook for participatory planning and budgeting was introduced and has been adopted by more than half the local governments in the country. The Government has also adopted an initiative to promote the concept of a Citizens’ Charter. Each local authority will develop its own charter, clearly setting out the services and service standards that citizens could expect from the local authority, the procedures for obtaining those services, and how to seek a remedy if something goes wrong. It also invites greater support and cooperation from citizens to enhance local governance. The Foundation assisted the Ministry of Local Government and Provincial Councils to compile a comprehensive guide on how to develop a Citizens’ Charter, which is now being distributed to all local authorities in the country.

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2001. The Foundation has worked with local councils to improve solid waste management, roads, and water systems.

The Foundation has also helped the business community and local governments work together to boost economic growth and job creation in the provinces and help local authorities develop medium-term development plans for their areas with input from the private sector and civil society. Other activities have focused on increasing citizen participation in decision-making; improving the delivery of basic services like garbage collection; and increasing revenue to the local authority.


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2007. Asia Foundation Country Representative Nilan Fernando at a ceremony to hand over the ‘key’ to a bus equipped with books and educational audio visual material for children in areas affected by the Asian Tsunami. He stands in between the Thirukkovil Pradeshiya Sabha Chairman and the Minister for Local Government and Provincial Councils.

Give2Asia was established by The Asia Foundation in 2000 to provide a convenient and effective means for both individual and corporate donors in the United States and Canada to do just that: give to Asia. It is a non-profit organisation that channels the generosity of donors to where it would do most good, facilitating grants to approved charities selected by the donor or to programme areas of the donor’s choice, with the assurance that all funding is fully accounted for.

Tsunami Recovery Work and the Role of Give2Asia

After the 2004 tsunami, Give2Asia set up the Tsunami Recovery Fund to address the urgent needs that arose in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and India. Grants from this fund enabled The Asia Foundation in Sri Lanka to respond in a meaningful way in the country’s hour of need.

Give2Asia supported The Asia Foundation’s Small Business Recapitalisation Project that provided hundreds of small grants to small and micro-enterprise owners in the

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southern Sri Lankan districts of Galle, Matara, and Hambantota and in the eastern districts of Ampara and Batticaloa to help them restart the businesses that they lost. The grants were channeled through existing business associations and local chambers of commerce and industry who, knowing the local business landscape better than anyone, were able to select grant recipients based on need and ensure that the money was distributed fairly. The project helped more than seven hundred entrepreneurs to successfully rebuild their livelihoods and businesses.

As the survivors of the disaster began to rebuild their lives, many were still haunted by the horrors of that day and still needed psychological help. With Asia Foundation funding, the

2005. Through The Asia Foundation’s small business recapitalisation project, families like these in Ampara and Batticaloa, which lost their livelihoods in the tsunami, were able to start up their businesses afresh.


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Psychosocial Support Programme (PSP) was able to train staff of local agencies involved in relief work to incorporate culturally sensitive approaches as they provided services to people in affected areas, teach professional mental healthcare workers how to respond to the emotional damage caused by the tsunami, and educate laypeople in informal counseling and befriending skills so that traumatized people had access to caring and knowledgeable counselors to help them recover.

In Batticaloa, Give2Asia supported Sarvodaya to set up a new vocational education centre to help those who lost their livelihoods in the 2008. Youthful dancers in Sooriyawewa

who welcomed the arrival of the new mobile library to their school, take a peek at the library shelves.

tsunami as well as to meet a demand for skilled laborers and craftsmen to assist with the long-term reconstruction effort in the region. Sarvodaya had been operating a successful training centre in the area long before the tsunami hit and with Give2Asia help, expanded the centre to include new training facilities, computing rooms, and resources, as well as residential facilities.

Letting local community inputs guide initiatives is a hallmark of The Asia Foundation’s work. In tsunami-affected communities from Hikkaduwa in the south to Trincomalee in the east, the Foundation partnered with twenty

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local governments to facilitate community forums to identify the most pressing needs of each community. Projects included improving waste disposal and mosquito control and providing extra tutors and books for schools in refugee camps.

With thousands of children losing their school books and notes to the angry sea, the Foundation turned buses into mobile libraries stocked with books in Sinhala, Tamil, and English as well as multimedia projectors and educational DVDs to provide much-needed teaching materials to affected areas. The mobile libraries were deployed in the communities of Hambantota, Hikkaduwa, Kattankudy, and Thirukkovil, and served an estimated eighty thousand children living in southern and eastern Sri Lanka.

2008. The Asia Foundation’s mobile libraries brought smiles to the faces of thousands of children who had lost their own books in the tsunami.


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2005. The Strategic Conflict Assessment implemented by The Asia Foundation.

In 2000, the Department for International Development (UK) conducted an important study on the relationship between aid, conflict, and peace-building in Sri Lanka. It advocated for development and diplomatic partners in Sri Lanka to pursue a more coherent, joined-up approach to addressing the challenges of peace-building. In 2005, The Asia Foundation with the World Bank implemented a second Strategic Conflict Assessment study with financial support from the governments of the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. This study analysed political events since the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, examined how international engagement – particularly of aid donors – interacted with conflict and peace dynamics, and offered recommendations on how the international community in general and aid donors in particular could better support national peace-building efforts.

Conflict Analysis

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2005. The Strategic Conflict Assessment offers recommendations on how the international community can better support domestic peace-building efforts and usher in a new era of hope for children like these.


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looking back…

In Haydn Williams’ remarks recorded in the Foundation’s annual report of 1986, he quotes with pride an independent study evaluating the Foundation’s work: “Asians have a great affection for The Asia Foundation.” Williams, who was the Foundation’s president for more than twenty-five years, goes on to state simply: “This we feel is an accomplishment in itself.”

To paraphrase that study more than two decades later, it would be true to say that Sri Lankans have a great affection for The Asia Foundation and, certainly in today’s context, when many international non-governmental organisations are viewed with cynicism or even suspicion, that is indeed an accomplishment in itself.

Looking back at what The Asia Foundation has accomplished over its long association with Sri Lanka, several themes stand out.

Since the Foundation began its work in the country, hundreds of Sri Lankan professionals, administrators, scholars, educators, and businessmen have been given the opportunity to learn and grow in experience. The list includes grantees who have gone on to become influential civil servants, ambassadors, government ministers, judges and university deans, and leading economists, lawyers, journalists, captains of industry, social workers, and activists, who have each contributed in their own way toward the development of their nation.

The Sri Lankan educational establishment – its schools, universities, and training institutions – have been key beneficiaries of Asia Foundation programmes. Curricula have been revised and modernised, and infrastructure improved. Libraries have been built and stocked and their staff trained in librarianship. English-language teaching initiatives in particular have received much assistance in the form of consultancies and material resources, and generations of students have profited from the 3.4 million

books that have flowed into the country through the Foundation’s Books for Asia programme.

The Foundation’s support for youth organisations and vocational training institutions have afforded thousands of young men and women the opportunity to acquire vocational and leadership skills to help them become productive and successful members of society, while assistance for voluntary social services organisations have encouraged people acting on their own initiatives to play a proactive role in caring for those who need help.

Through its support for law and justice programmes, which has been a recurring theme through the decades, the Foundation has been a partner in many important initiatives that have helped make Sri Lanka’s justice system more equitable and more accessible to all its citizens. Among them are the Ministry of Justice’s mediation boards, which have to date successfully resolved some 1.8 million disputes outside of the formal court system, and the provision of legal aid and promotion of legal literacy by several local organisations. Thousands of Sri Lankan craftsmen, entrepreneurs, and industrialists from three generations have benefited from the support that the Foundation has provided through numerous local chambers of industry and training institutions, while initiatives to improve the infrastructure and regulatory environment for small and medium enterprises across the country have helped set the stage for more broad-based economic growth.

The Foundation supported local initiatives to generate public awareness of the need to protect Sri Lanka’s environment at a time when environmental concerns were completely subordinated to development objectives. By strengthening the capacity of local environmental organisations, and securing the cooperation of the relevant authorities, the Foundation facilitated the development

Facing page:1955. This grantee pictured at the Academy of Asian Studies in the United States, and hundreds of others, benefited from the opportunities provided through the Foundation’s travel grants, scholarships, and exchange programmes.

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of Sri Lanka’s Environmental Act and helped to gain acceptance for the process of environmental impact assessment and the concept of community participation in resource management, thereby bringing conservation into the public conscience. It also promoted partnerships between traditionally adversarial non-governmental organisations and businesses, to demonstrate how cleaner processes could benefit the bottom line as well as the environment.

Through focused initiatives to empower women, the Foundation and its partner organisations have helped establish models for rural women to harness their own potential and win their economic and legal rights, and these successes in turn have spurred other women’s groups to do the same.

The Foundation has fostered the development of a professional, independent media through its support for training journalists, the development of the country’s first graduate programmes in journalism, and grants for alternative publications and television and radio programming.

A wide range of initiatives in the area of human rights education, monitoring, and enforcement have been promoted, with special emphasis on vulnerable groups such as communities in conflict areas, internally displaced persons, detainees, and prisoners.

Effective local governance has been encouraged and enabled through the strengthening of the institutional capacity of local authorities across the island. Foundation assistance has brought about the development of systems and processes that help make local authorities transparent, accountable, and effective.

Many local non-governmental organisations have received Foundation support to build up their resources and expertise and to become strong, self-sustaining organisations playing a vital role in Sri Lankan society.

Throughout its association with Sri Lanka, the Foundation has been uniquely successful in its approach of engaging government and non-governmental bodies, community groups, the private sector, and the academia to work together in the common interest. It is in this unsung role as a quiet facilitator and catalyst of initiatives of national significance that the Foundation has made perhaps its most valuable contribution to the broader development goals of the country.

Facing page:1957. Through its support for youth organisations in the fifties and sixties, The Asia Foundation gave thousands of young men and women the opportunity to acquire vocational skills. Pictured here are young women being trained in yarn making and weaving, at a Ceylon Youth Council weaving centre.

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staff of the asia foundation in sri lanka

Country Representatives

Hobrook Bradley 1953 - 1955

William Flemming 1955 - 1959

Louis Lazaroff 1959 - 1962

Richard Heggie 1962 - 1965

James Noyes 1965 - 1968

Richard Hendrickson 1968 - 1970

Frank Dines 1979 - 1981

John Guyer 1982 - 1988

Nick Langton 1989 - 1992

Richard Fuller 1992 - 1993

Edward Anderson 1993 - 1997

Mark McKenna 1998 - 2003

Nilan Fernando 2003 - present

Deputy Country Representatives and other Senior Staff

Vernon de Silva 1980 - 1992

Anton Nallathamby 1980 - present

Lorna Dewaraja 1983 - 1986

Lasantha Salgado 1990

Kim McQuay 1992

Jennifer Thambayah 1992 - 1995

Steve Claborne 1992 - 1996

Dinesha deSilva Wikramanayake 1991 - 1992, 1995 - 2008

Meloney Lindberg 2008 - 2009

Gita Sabharwal 2009 - present

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trustees of the asia foundation

The Asia Foundation is governed by a board of trustees consisting of men and women who represent diverse backgrounds ranging from government, academia and international organisations to the private sector. They share a deep and genuine interest in the people of the Asia-Pacific and are commited to helping develop this region.

Michael H. Armacost Chairman of the Board

Harry HardingMissie RennieVice Chairs

Douglas BereuterPresident & CEO

Susan J. PharrSecretary

Paul S. SlawsonTreasurer

Terrence B. AdamsonWilliam L. Ball, III Mary Brown Bullock Alexander D. Calhoun, Esq.Gina Lin Chu Scott D. Cook Theodore L. Eliot, Jr. Jared Frost Karl F. InderfurthKenneth I. Juster James Andrew Kelly

Ellen Laipson David M. Lampton Chien LeeLee Hong-KooDouglas H. Paal Surin PitsuwanThomas P. Rohlen J. Stapleton Roy Teresita Schaffer Robert A. Theleen Judith F. Wilbur Linda Tsao Yang Alice Young

TRUSTEES EMERITI:William S. Anderson A. W. Clausen Thomas S. Foley Ernest M. Howell Chong-Moon Lee Robert A. Scalapino Walter H. Shorenstein

PRESIDENTS EMERITI:William P. FullerHaydn Williams

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about the author

Michelle Gunawardana was born in Sri Lanka in 1971. Having completed a honours degree in Biotechnology, she worked in the banking sector for over a decade before discovering her true calling and settling down to a career as a professional writer. She has authored Making the Connection - 150 Years of Telecommunication in Sri Lanka and The Women Behind Your Label - inspirational stories of women in the apparel industry. Michelle and her husband Anil share a love of dinghy sailing and have together won several national sailing titles. They live in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with their baby daughter Lara.

Facing page:2006. Through the myriad programmes that the Foundation has supported over the years, it has won the affection of the beneficiaries of these programmes and the respect of the individuals and organisations that it has worked with to help create a better future for Sri Lanka’s future generations.

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We gratefully acknowledge:

Nancy Kelly and Kristin Kelly Colombano for their editing and design assistance.

Dini Kurukulasuriya for her design concept.

Hyacinth Razack for her invaluable help with digging up old records and chasing up material for the book.

Haydn Williams, Robert Schwantes, and Bill McDougal for reading the manuscript and offering their useful suggestions and comments about the Foundation’s early years.

Wickrema Weerasooria, Dinesha de Silva Wikramanayake, Jayantha Wickramanayake, and Anton Nallathamby for sharing their memories of programmes that go way back.

Photo CreditsAnuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi – p 85Dominic Sansoni – p 103 (top)Studio Times – p 19, 28, 33, 44/45, 47, 70, 87, 110Lake House – p 37, 48, 49 (top), 55Taprobane Street – p 71 (top right)The Community Trust Fund – p 93, 94

other book credits

An enduring friendshipTh

e Asia Foundation celebrates five decades in Sri LankaM

ichelle

Gunaw

ard

ana

www.asiafoundation.org



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