Promote cohesive environment among community platform to engage constructively in reconciliation process – Funded by USAID SCORE

Name of Project: Promote cohesive environment among community platform to engage constructively in reconciliation process
Name of Programme: Reconciliation
Source of Fund: SCORE | USAID
DS Division: Koralaipattu-south Kiran
GN Divisions: Kudumimalai and Perillaveli
Main Activity: Promote a cohesive Sri Lankan identity
Proposed Start Date: 11th August 2023
Proposed End Date: 31st January 2024 (06 Months Project)

  • Key Stakeholders / Target Groups: Community platforms of Kudumbimalai, Perillaveli,
  • Divisional secretary, GN based state officers and PALM
  • No of planned beneficiaries and type (Provide Direct & Indirect beneficiaries separately): Direct Beneficiaries- 30 key representatives from Community based platforms, 08 CPs and 06 local-led economic recovery initiatives. Indirect Beneficiaries-Nearly 1346 family members

Sub-Purpose:
1. Promote a cohesive Sri Lankan identity
2. Reduce socio-economic disparities and exclusion
Communities actively participate in reconciliation processes and work towards constructive outcomes. Economic opportunities are enhanced for the most marginalized communities.

Objectives

Promote cohesive environment among community platform to engage constructively in reconciliation process.

Expected Outputs
  • Strengthen the capacity of Community Platforms office bearers and members, provide them with material and equipment for sustainable operation.
  • Implemented community Local-led economic recovery to address the common needs prioritized by the community.
Expected Outcomes
Summary
  1. Enhance the Institutional and management capacities of community based organization leaders to carryout activities related to Civic Education and Engagement– SCORE will support for strengthening the overall capacity of the community based organization key 30 members from the RDS, WRDS, Farmers society, CES, fishermen society, Youth club and other relevant societies. Activity begins with the intervention of developing institutional capacity that covers functional and management capacity of the Community platform members. PALM will conduct the two days training programme with the participation both community platforms members to build the institutional & functional capacity of the community platforms to strengthen their constructive operation
    as strong community platforms that will ensure the long-term non-stop running. At the end of the activity, community platforms’ member’s capacity in terms of operational functions will be enhanced and organizational history will be recorded through a proper documentation.
  2. Promote Civic actions – The comprehensive civic education Training can address the knowledge and capacity enhancement for Community Platform members to understand and initiate various aspects of the issues and to provide leadership to take their initiatives forward to achieve the project objectives. At the heart of civic education, is the concept that we must understand what it means to be a citizen and its active citizenship will enable the democratic values towards cohesive environment towards the Civic action. Four sessions (half day session) will be conducted with the participation of 15 key CBOs representatives from each GND. The session will focus to enhance knowledge and capacity on democratic citizenship and good governance, human rights, culture of peace, constitutionalism, constitutional governance, characteristics, and practice of democratic values.
  3. Skill development workshops on systemizing dispute mediation and its practices- The story behind this activity of conducting workshop on dispute mediation is there is a need for a system to handle or response uninvited community tensions and disputes in early. 30 CPs leaders who has to be in the Civic education training are the participants for the dispute mediation skills workshop and the training equips the skills on maintaining the system. Further this system will also identify any attempts to unleash extremist propaganda or propagate violence and will take appropriate steps to defuse the tensions and initiatives with the support of the law enforcement authorities. PALM will facilitate conduct the two-day workshops on skills for dispute mediation for 30 participants among CP leaders and state officials. At the end of the workshop participants will be capacitated on handling/responding and mitigating disputes to reduce uninvited community tensions.
  4. District level CSOs– PALM will support to link SCORE targeted GNDs with the selected 15 Key Community platforms leaders to district level CSOs forums/apex to strengthen their advocacy capacity and for improve their future collaborations.
    This will be initiated through an initial dialogue with district forum.
  5. Support on Local-led economic recovery to promote community interactions and active engagement– PALM will facilitate community platforms to identify community priorities to address the key community issues and economic related conflict drivers in the working locations specially focusing on the current economic recovery aspects. Wider community including community platforms will be part of the identification, prioritization, and implementation process. PALM will support to select the existing small level emerging enterprises, which are creating the community level economic contributions. Community-led economic recovery activities will be a medium to promote community interactions and a cohesive environment among the community and different groups of people in the rural areas. Six Initiative (individual/Group) will be selected and implemented. PALM will support community platform to identify sustain over a period of aiming building peace or resolving natural disaster conflict. While PALM provide technical support, community platforms will lead the process.