A facilitation meeting was held in Kandy as an activity of NPC’s Protecting Civic Space in Sri Lanka (PCS) project to identify problems in the community and conduct appropriate measures focusing on freedom of association.

In Teldeniya, one of the most important issues is that the government was not initiating problem solving in the community. State officers such as development officers and social service officers identified about 12 community issues such as domestic violence, early marriage, lack of proper waste management and unemployment that needed to be addressed.

The project provided a platform for planning. For instance, participants decided to introduce a proper mechanism to solve community problems and formed a committee and appointed a leader, who was a woman.

The committee agreed that issues focusing on freedom of association will be addressed through the support and guidance of NPC. Other problems will be solved by the committee, which began to prepare an action plan to address them. Being able to support initial mechanisms that can be sustained independently of financed projects has been a success through the project.