The Women's Community Resource Centres of Matara and Moratuwa, two PLUS Network cities in Sri Lanka, are open and serving the women of their communities as safe places to organize events, exchange information, and receive livelihood and mobilization training and education. The Moratuwa Centre includes a health clinic.

ICSC was in the midst of an urban greening program in three Sri Lanka cities when the deadliest tsunami ever recorded hit the country's shores on December 26, 2004. One of the cities, Moratuwa, was on the south-east coast. Although no lives were lost in the Moratuwa neighbourhood where ICSC was working, the damage was extensive. Moratuwa, along with Matara on the south coast, was selected by ICSC and its partners Sevanatha (a Colombo-based NGO working to meet the needs of the urban poor), Builders Without Borders and GROOT International for a post-tsunami reconstruction project.

Design charrete for the Women's Centre

The goals were to improve women's participation in decision-making, to improve the local council's responsiveness to their needs, to equip the women with income-generations skills to help them support their families, and to improve the environment through urban greening, flood control and solid waste management. The three-year project was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

The Centres were designed using participatory design charrettes involving community members, architects, and various stakeholders including municipal councillors, planners and engineers. Community leadership provided by women's societies that were formed during the course of the project.

The project, called Centering Women in Reconstruction and Governance (CWRG), began with the gathering of baseline data in the selected communities within the cities, the formation of small community women's groups, and the organization of training workshops, training events and peer exchanges. A total of 61 training activities were held, all focused on building capacity primarily among the women of the communities.

61 training events and workshops were held

Savings and credit groups were created that eventually become aligned with the Women's Bank. The small groups become the building blocks for the formation of a larger women's society in each city, with an elected executive and a membership comprising one-third of the women in the Moratuwa community and two-thirds in the Matara community. The societies were formally registered with the local municipals councils and are now responsible for the management of the Centres. In Moratuwa, the society was accepted by the municipal council as a partner in the construction of 25 houses in a poor neighbourhood.

Women worked together with men to clean drains and improve a total of 800m of lanes, and organized a campaign to clean a village beach. After training in urban agriculture as well as book-keeping, women embarked on a variety of income-generating activities including mushroom growing, poultry farming, medicinal herb cultivation, and sweet-making. They started home gardens using news skills in compost making and liquid fertilizer production. Through their relationship with the Women's Bank, the societies provided loans to finance small infrastructure and livelihood projects.

Mushroom cultivation

Peer exchanges locally, nationally, and even internationally with groups Thailand, India and the Phillippines were a key factor in the success of these capacity building projects. During the final Lessons Learned Workshop in December 2008, which brought together representatives from participants and stakeholders, women expressed their satisfaction with the increase in the visibility of their community issues with municipal authorities.

Although not measured in the project outcomes, additional benefits include a greater pride of place and a strengthened sense of agency among the women and youth, in a culture where men are traditionally predominant. At the end of the three-year process, women in the community are now making powerpoint presentations at meetings with councils and foreign delegations and have emerged as community leaders, assuming responsible positions in their own banking system, running community centres and sharing their lessons with other communities. The neighbourhoods are better and more attractive places to live, with the improved lanes and home gardens contributing to a sense of pride as well as increased land values.

In the Moratuwa Centre Health Clinic

The Moratuwa Women's Community Resource Centre was officially opened in October 2008, and the Matara Women's Centre (picture at top) in February 2009. Speaking in Matara on the occasion, Mr. Calvin R. Piggott, First Secretary (Development) of the Canadian High Commission in Sri Lanka, said of the Centre that “it provides an excellent working environment for women to strengthen their operational and managerial skills by responding to the community's economic and social needs…This model could be replicated in other Municipal Councils to support communities to enhance their contribution to development, and the empowerment of women in the political process.”

More information about the Sri Lanka Centering Women in Reconstruction and Governance project.