The Children’s Day celebration

The citizen forum celebrated The Children’s Day organizing some events for the children in the rural development center in Kondachchikda in Musali, Mannar. More than 60 children participated to the ceremony engaging with different events. Children had an opportunity to play games, show their colors singing, dancing, playing dramas.  Children made speeches according to the children’s day. 

School tools like books, Pencils, pens, matrix books, foot rulers and erasers were presented to the children.  

Mr.  A. Deva, the children probation office participated as the chief guest. The district coordinator and animators of District Fisheries Solidarity in Mannar participated to the celebration. Miss Rajeswari, the treasure of the citizen forum in Musali organized the program in the village. Some citizen forum members also participated in village level. 

May Day Celebration in 2014

National Fisheries Solidarity Movement commemorated the World May Day with the hundreds  of working peoples consisting of fisherman, farmers, labours and other working people at Katunayake. Many religious leaders, Center For Women, Sri Vimukthi Fisher Women Org, Southern Fisheries Organization, Dabindu Samuuhikaya, Janawaboda Center, Right To Life, Shramabimani, Platform For Freedom, Meepura News Network, Mothers and Daughters of Lanka and several other organizations  gathered under the name of Free Trade Zone Solidarity to succeed the event. It focused on the commemoration of Roshen Chamika who gave the life  to protect the rights of working people straggling against the government’s unjust decision. 

The march was stated at 18 post of Katunayake and campaigners walked Avariyawatte junction showing banners, posters and saying slogans.  Fisher Community, Free trade zone workers, Women s right organizations were voiced out their demands such as  wages for the work, 8 hour work per day, job security, Stop of out sourcing, and stop land grabbing for tourism development and development activities which are not sustainable for the people and environment at the Avariyawatte junction.

Citizen Summit at Anuradapura

A citizen summit was held related to  Active Citizenship for Development Network  on 17/18^th of February 2014 in Sevalanka Foundation in Rajanganaya, Anuradapuara. There were four main purposes to organize this event.  Reviewing the whole program being participated the citizen forum members was one the main purposes of the summit. The citizen forum process has past three years on the project. It provided an opportunity the citizen forum members to set together and analyze the program assessing the progress, weakness and challengers.   

Citizen forum members were able to strengthen the relationship among the citizen forums as well as interpersonal relationship also. It planned to aware the citizen forum members about different subjects through the summit. We invited to four external resource persons to share their knowledge with the citizen forum members. In that way,  Mr. Pradeep Jayarathne who is a journalist and political analyzer expressed on  role and responsibility of the active citizens in this   existing political, economic and social context in the country. Dr. Jehan Perera who is the director of National Peace Council shared his experience on Social development through peace and reconciliation  among the nations. Mr. Sujeeva Jayawikkrama, Journalist trained the members to use the comic arts to communicate information among the community effectively.

Mr. M.A.J. Thuram who is the Assistance Commissioner of the Local Government in Mannar educated the participants about the  importance and  responsibility of the local governmental institutes at regional development. We built up an open dialogue with the participant about the reconciliation among the nations based on a film name “Take this Road”.  We had above purposes at organizing the citizen summit. There were more than 45 participants from Mannar, Trincomalee, Kaluthara and Kegalle districts which are related to National Fisheries Solidarity Movement ( NAFSO) and Center for Society and Religion( CSR) Participants actively engaged with the summit. We were able to see very warm debates, discussions and intervention of the citizen forum members over different issues. A representative of Uva Community Development Center (UCDC) took part to the summit.  The representatives of CAFOD also participated to the summit. Chameera Perera who is the program of CSR and Navarathne Hennayake, program coordinator of UCDC facilitated the program. 

This event was organized by NAFSO with the support of CSR and the program coordinator on ACDN.

Project coordinator visited NAFSO

The project coordinator of ACDN visited NAFSO secretariat to discuss about preparing the action plan and the budget for second year of the program at the NAFSO secretariat on 2nd of April 2012. The Accountant and the program coordinator of the NAFSO on the ACDN were advised to prepare quality action plan and correct budget. He introduced a format to be used for preparing the action plan. He discussed about other issues which were related to the project to be continued in future well.
 He met the district coordinators of the Budget Monitor program also at Chinthana training center in Nainamadama on 3rd of April 2012. District coordinators in Jaffna, Mannar, Trincomalee and Ampara participated to the discussion with project coordinator. Common discussion among district coordinators was leaded to identify the existing situation on the project in each district. He discussed with district coordinators about different issues which are related to the project such as the base line survey to assess the progress, action plan for second year, yearend progress report, comic program, district convention and so on. 

The citizen forum was highly welcome by Divisional Secretary

The citizen forum committee members met Mrs. Sasidevi Jalatheepan who is the divisional secretary of town and gravest division on 11 and 30 of October 2011 at the secretariat office in Trincomalie. The convener of citizen forum, three committee members, district animator and two NAFSO secretariat staffs attended to the meeting to discuss on objective of forming citizen forum and their role for regional development. The citizen forum was highly welcome as civil society by the divisional secretary and she appreciated  to the citizen forum because DS would like to get civil participation on regional development. She mentioned that they were unable to get sufficient people  participant for previous development in the divisional areas. They have to get 25% peoples participant for any development process implementing through the divisional secretariat as government procedure but they had no wider linkage with civil communities like this without rural development society.
As a result of meeting DS, we were able succeed   very important objectives which are related to the regional development. 

DS agreed to give an opportunity to participate two members of citizen forum for all committee meetings related to the development issues in the area. As that statement, the citizen forum was invited to participate to the disaster management committee which has been organized to prepare a plan to face the bad weather condition. They are going to plan as prior preparation to face the flood getting participation of the people. 

The citizen forum was permitted  to participate for civil security committee
The divisional secretary agreed to hold a mobile service on the problems  that people are facing in the village level specially in Mahamayapura area. She said that it wants to collect and list out all  issues people are facing and send to the divisional secretariat for reference before hold the mobile service. She agreed to convene all officers who are related to the issues that people identify as  priority issues. 

The citizen forum members inquired to DS against the grama sevaka who works in Mahamayapura area. People had a great suspicion about the land survey conducted in Mahamayapura area but there was a planned  awareness program to educate the people on the survey basis on the Grama Sevaka. The awareness program was not conducted sufficiently by the Grama sevak in Mahamayapura area. 

As a result of that, people fidgeted because of not having any ways to know correct information about the survey. As above careless role as well as other inquiries against to the Grama Sewaka , DS agreed to transfer the Grama sewaka and point to the new Gramasewaka in next January 2012.
DS permitted to hold the citizen forum meeting in the hall of the divisional secretariat office if it wants that opportunity.   

National Convention on ACDN

National Stakeholder Consultation on peoples participation in state budget was organized by Active Citizenship for Development Network (ACDN) at Renuka Hotel, Colombo 03 on 22nd of March in 2012. Every network partner on ACDN such as Uva Community Development Center(UCDC), Center for Society and Religion(CSR), National Fisheries Solidarity Movement(NAFSO) and Law and Society Trust (LST) as well as other stakeholders who related to this process participated for the National Convention which was facilitated by Law and Society Trust as one of the ACD network partners.

Why we formed as ACD network is to increased participatory process in budget making at local, provincial and national level in order to secure the socio economic rights of the people. NAFSO as network partner is working in four districts such as Jaffna, Mannar, Trincomali and Ampara in the country and working in regional level going through grass root level. CSR and UCDC also are working in district wise in different areas in the country.

 As a network partner of the ACDN, NAFSO’s district members participated to The National Convention covering four districts that we are working. This was a better opportunity for district activators to get understanding and experience about the process on ACDN. NAFSO also had an opportunity to share experience on this process as the organization. Mr. Raheem who is the coordinator in Trincomalie district presented district experience as well as the organization which works on the ACDN in the North and East.

There were some selected National and International organization’s representatives who have engaged with the same process , some stakeholders representing the government and some related academics in the national Convention. That was a gathering that different stakeholders being in the same table. Professor Jayada Uyangoda who is in the department of political science and public policy, University in Colombo made a speech on people’s participation process at the local government level and Nauli Wimalarathne who is the program coordinator of Transparency International Sri Lanka shared their experience on the same issues. This experience directs us t forward as a group on ACDN