NPC Board Member and former Vice Chacellor of the Eastern University, Professor M. S. Mookaiah, attended a programme in Hatton conducted by NPC under the ACE-IT intervention supported by the European Union (EU) for marginalised people living in the plantations in the area, including those with different types of disabilities.

Programme Coordinator N. Vijaykanthan guided a discussion session, with the aid of videos clippings and songs, that was designed to inspire confidence in the participants.

A crucial point brought out was that problems were a fact of life that affected everybody regardless of wealth, age or physical ability.

During the second session, the discussion centred on the nature and importance of good governance and the role of political leadership and the voting population of the electorate. Some participants narrated their various personal problems and complained that they were unable to contact the relevant people and institutions in order to approach them to find solutions.

He also attended a similar discussion session in Badulla, where participants were also marginalised sections of the population of the district, including street cleaning workers who had never had an opportunity to attend such a discussion session before.

Several people spoke about missing relatives lost during the war from the district that borders the eastern area of the country. Both Sinhalese and Tamil participants discussed the issue in relation to the Office on Missing Persons (OMP), Office of Reparations, a commission on truth seeking, the Right to Information Act and the Human Rights Commission.

The importance of the rule of law in relation to the rights of the victims was also explored at the discussion session.