India To Empower Women In The East
By Dinouk Colombage
India is to provide Rs. 203 million in grant money to help establish a Trade Facilitation Centre and a Community Learning Centre in Batticaloa. The centres will be aimed at assisting war widows in the East of Sri Lanka.
This agreement was signed on May 31 and involves the Governments of India and Sri Lanka and Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). The three parties involved will provide technical assistance and implementation support for the centres.
The Sri Lankan government is expected to provide the premises along with any other local support for the centres. The SEWA will be the executing agency on behalf of the Indian government, while the Ministry of Child Development and Women’s Affairs will act as the agency for Sri Lanka.
Initially the project will aim to train forty destitute and war affected women in the Batticaloa region. They will be trained as trainers, under the ‘training of trainers’ program in India. Following their training, they will in turn train 800 trainees under the guidance of SEWA.
The women will be trained in several vocational subjects including; textiles and garments, computer, enterprise development and agro food processing. The duration of this project is expected to last two years.
High Commissioner of India, Ashok K. Kantha, said that as Sri Lanka enters a stage of rebuilding such projects are essential. He further added that the prime goal of the project is to see the economic empowerment of women.
The Indian High Commission told The Sunday Leader that this project will only take place in the East. However if it proves to be a success, the two countries will look at expanding the initiative throughout the country.
India needs to follow up to ensure that funds donated are used for purposes for which they are donated.
Monthly/Quarterly returns of fund allocation should be part of the donation procedure.
This is usual in donations to INGOs & NGOs.
get lost india, none of the sri lankans, whether sinhala,tamil or muslim likes u.
just get out of the country n dont ever interfere in our business.
u trained n funded LTTE, ur the main reason LTTE became a huge army.
then u showed that as a reason to sign plenty of agreements with us n made us ur slave.
rajiv gandi deserve wat he got. he got beaten by the navy soldiers and got bombed by the LTTE.
now stop interfering in our affairs
I am very happy that the Government of India is helping the war victim women of Batticaloa. There are many thousands of widows and orphans in Batticaloa. They are intelligent and hardworking. They can be trained to do any type of work. They need employment and adeqaute income to look after their children. This is a highly commendable humanitarian service
My sincere gratitude to all those who are responsible for providing this help.
Dr M L Najimudeen
Kathankudy
The “RAW” noose is getting tighter and tighter – and we’ll never know until we are suffocated – and it will be too late then.