Programs
Transition Initiatives
Current Programs
PACOM Small-Scale Infrastructure (2008 - 2009)
To improve the lives of people affected by the conflict, USAID has partnered with the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) to rehabilitate five schools in southern Trincomalee District and two schools in western Batticaloa District and expand one hospital in Batticaloa District. With $2.4 million in humanitarian assistance from PACOM, these activities are targeted to assist communities where many conflict-affected people have returned.
Students at Thiruvalluvar School in Poonagar village, Muthur celebrate the good news that PACOM will rebuild and repair classrooms and administrative buildings, all badly damaged during the conflict.
The buildings chosen for renovation provide essential social services to civilians whose lives have been repeatedly disrupted by armed hostilities for as long as two decades. In several of the communities, residents were displaced and not all have returned to the area because the existing infrastructure cannot provide basic services.
In Batticaloa District, USAID and PACOM are improving Pulipanjakal School, Arasadithivu Vigneswara Vidyalayam School, and Navatkadu Hospital. In Trincomalee District, renovations will be done at Amman Nagar School, Arafa Nagar School, Thiruvalluvar School, Illangaithurai Mugathuvaram School, and Punnayadi Namagal School in Muthur and Eachchilampattai.
Through this project, USAID and PACOM are constructing 64 new classrooms and renovating more than 13 classrooms in seven schools, providing more space for hundreds of students and their teachers. In addition, building three new wards at Navatkadu Hospital will provide 63 additional beds to take care of local residents when they need medical attention.
These efforts support the U.S. Government's wider goal of helping to stabilize and develop eastern Sri Lanka so terrorism can never take root in the region again.
Reintegration and Stabilization of the East (RISE) - (2009 - 2012)
This program will promote stability in Eastern Sri Lanka by improving human and economic security in targeted communities, providing support and opportunities for at-risk youth, and building public confidence that core conflict issues, such as land disputes and language pluralism, are being addressed. Funding of $4.75 million over three years has been committed to the program.
Community Policing Program (CPP) - (2009 - 2011)
This program will support the recruitment and professional development of an eastern provincial police force that is representative of the diverse communities it serves. This $2 million initiative over two years will provide language and skills training to help the police build trust with local residents.
Information, Counseling and Referral Services for Ex-Combatants (2009 - 2010)
USAID will support the International Organization for Migration (IOM) with $1.25 million over 12 months to provide information, counseling and referrals to education, skills training, and/or employment opportunities for ex-combatants in the East who have already been disarmed and demobilized. This pilot program, implemented in close coordination with relevant government authorities, will establish a framework and process for re-integrating additional ex-combatants in the East and North into society, with support from other donors.
Children Affected by Armed Conflict (CAAC) - (2009)
The program will support reintegration and protection of an estimated 700 children - both boys and girls - released from or at risk of recruitment by armed groups in Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara Districts. UNICEF will implement the program through a $250,000 grant from USAID.
Recently Completed Programs
Small Grants, Big Aims
Sinhala villagers arrive to conduct a shramadana will Tamil and Muslim counterparts.
The Transition Initiatives small-grants program was established in 2003, with initial funding and direction from USAID's Office of Transition Initaitives (OTI), as a flexible tool to support opportunities emerging from a nascent peace process. For its first five years, the program took a bottom-up approach by supporting activities conceived and developed in the field through partnerships with and between community-based civil society groups, media entities and local government officials. Small-grant activities in both conflict-affected and tsunami-affected communities created positive relationships, reconnected people in divided communities, developed capacity for local problem solving, and mitigated conflict at the grassroots level as a way to maintain space for policymakers and opinion shapers to negotiate peace at the national level.
Through June 2008, the small-grants program, for which USAID Sri Lanka assumed sole management responsibilities in March 2007, provided 772 small-grant awards for projects valued at $32 million in the conflict-affected or conflict-strategic Southern, Eastern, Northern, North-Western and North-Central provinces. With offices in Colombo, Trincomalee and Ampara in the East and Matara in the South, USAID ensured that tsunami-affected and conflict-affected communities benefited from the initiatives.
Small-grant activities included the rehabilitation of public infrastructure such as markets, clinics, schools and minor roads, as well as livelihoods-oriented skills training. Mobilization of volunteer labor through the local shramadana tradition, which cut across cultural and political lines, was a central component of such activities. Small-grant activities involving media and information dissemination improved knowledge, generated social discourse, changed attitudes and promoted non-violent action on issues of local and national importance.
"Real Voices" Radio
Based on the demonstrated impact of media-related activities within the TI program, USAID supported Internews Networks, Inc., to establish and manage resource centers for training and radio content production in the South and East under the Regional Media Initiative. Under the $1.3 million award, over 22 months, Internews provided access to training, equipment and radio production facilities for local journalists, as well as staff from community-based organizations. Issues-based content -- reported from a local perspective with accuracy, balance and depth -- was broadcast in both vernacular languages (Sinhala and Tamil) over existing Sri Lankan radio frequencies and distributed abroad via the Internet. " Real Voices Radio," the flagship program, offered news and information with direct local relevance as told through the voices of people who work and live in those communities.
A young reporter conducts an interview at the opening of the USAID-supported Matara Media House, a training center for local journalists.
The Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) and other Colombo-based journalism development organizations extended their outreach to district-based journalists through seminars and trainings held at three media houses. Located in the southern town of Matara, and the eastern towns of Ampara and Kalmunai, the media houses today still provide a safe space for collaboration among journalists from different ethnic backgrounds and regions, and the resulting content that emerges from team reporting broadens understanding among diverse groups.
Although the RMI program concluded in December 2007, additional USAID funding from the USAID's Office of Conflict Mitigation and Management (CMM) sustained much of the media house infrastructure. This support also strengthened links with the SLPI and supported content production to meet the humanitarian information needs of conflict-affected populations, promoting reconciliation within the wider public. USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) expanded the partnership with Internews further with support for a groundbreaking humanitarian program called Lifeline, which provides information to conflict-affected populations through radio and print media.
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