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by a Special Correspondent

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga established the Rana Viru Seva Authority (RVSA) by a Parliamentary Act to function directly under her purview to facilitate welfare and psychosocial requirements of the combatant Service and Police personnel, their families, the disabled in action, and the families of those missing and killed in action.

This work is for over a million persons affected directly by the strife in the Armed Forces and Police and their families, utilising private donations and government facilities.

During the 1 1/2 years of its existence the RVSA has commenced several welfare projects.

In the PERSONAL FAMILY HELP PROJET, the RVSA mediates to obtain relief in personal requests brought to its notice. This includes among others, school admissions, transfers, land, telephones, electricity, judicial and police cases, anomalies in pay and allowances etc. It is this Government which by policy decisions, enabled 12.5% of all admission to schools and continuity of pay without delay to Service and Police families even when killed or missing in action. Special consideration to deserving Ranaviru is given when distributing crown land without political interference.

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga appointed a Special Presidential Committee chaired by Armyne Wirasinghe, a businessperson, to monitor the RVSA Housing Project to provide housing to homeless service and police personnel posted for duty in the North and East, their widows and the disabled.

This Special Presidential Committee has also arranged for 6,000 placements for members of Ranaviru families and the disabled vocational training institutes in the public sector, exempting them from age, qualification and payment rules for admission to such courses. This RVSA Skills Development Project, under the direction of Earle Fernando, an international and national expert in vocational training, is done to empower Ranaviru families by increasing employability and self-employment.

On a questionnaire sent to Ranaviru families it was found that children in the 'O' and 'A' level classes give up education due to economic problems. The RVSA Education Project was then commenced to give scholarships of Rs. 500 per month for 2 years to children of combatants and police personnel in operational areas and of the disabled and of the lost.

This is mainly done with donations from Sri Lankans abroad as well as some local donors. As of date ten million rupees have been committed for nearly 1,000 scholarships.

More scholarships will be given when there are more donors. As in the other RVSA Projects, the donor is linked to the recipient, and in this project, to the principal of the school as well, so as to create new relationships between civilian and Ranaviru families as well as for purposes of transparency. Where so requested the RVSA mediates for the donor to give a scholarship directly to a Ranaviru child of any age - a type of Foster Family Scheme.

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga addressed a policy letter to all concerned ministries to facilitate access to workplace and public offices for disabled persons whose numbers are increasing in Sri Lanka due to those affected by the hostilities. She also requested State and Private organisations to give priority in attending to the needs of those disabled in action and to recruit 3% of them to the permanent cadre.

The RVSA Otherwise Abled Heroes Project seeks to empower them by self-employment training or provision of machinery for small scale enterprises or completion of partly constructed houses. Psychological support is given to the Association of Disabled Ex-Service Personnel (ADEP) to come to terms with the loss and to get on with life as independent citizens.

Through this project, the RVSA intervenes to obtain common amenities to the Ranaviru Gammana ( - the otherwise abled heroes villages) and attends to the personal problems of its residents. Self-employment and other ways of empowerment and independence is encouraged. Recently the RVSA obtained a donation of 5 million rupees from the National Lotteries Board to provide pipe borne water supplies to 5 such villages.

The President was astounded when she was told of the discrepid and unhygienic conditions at the Transit Camps where the soldiers have a temporary abode before being airlifted to the strife zones. She immediately ordered repairs to the camp and health control made the RVSA to start RVSA Transit Camp Project and coerced a Government Department to provide 3 acres of land for a new camp (in complying with this Presidential directive these public servants stinted and gave only 2 1/2 acres for heroes defending them!). This project seeks to build a new transit camp (costing rupees 15 million) in Ratmalana to keep the soldiers comfortable and to go to the front in a better psychological frame of mind. Women soldiers too were shifted from an overcrowded to more spacious accommodation. In Anuradhapura too new quarters were built.

The psychosocial support to the combatants, the disabled and the families of those missing and killed in action is done by the Human Intervention Unit. Its main function is in training. The first contact persons in Service Hospitals were trained in handling the injured and their close relatives; trained counsellors were sent to the civil hospitals where the injured are admitted. Meanwhile, nearly 500 volunteers from throughout the country were trained as befrienders to families, disabled and widows. With the assistance of the National Integration Programme Unit (NIPU), the RVSA arranged a workshop for Doctors in the Armed Services and Police on Combat Stress Reactions with the participation of international resource persons.

The Army high ups were also addressed on the psychological effects of modern warfare on combatants, and some elite troops on mitigating these effects. Psychological empowerment sessions have been held in the Provinces with the disabled and the widows. The medically retired disabled have been given 600 mobile commodes for use in their village homes.

On Rana Viru Day 2001 at the commemoration event held at President's House, several family members and otherwise abled at strife, brought up several problems to the notice of the President. She realised the need for mobile services involving several State Departments in the provinces. This is how the RVSA MOBILE AND LEGAL SERVICES PROJECT was started. Whilst such services have been held in the Raja Rata, Ruhuna, Wayamba and Udarata Provinces to provide immediate solutions to Ranaviru family problems, the same service takes place daily at the RVSA and the Free Legal Aid Scheme ( - Ministry of Justice) through letters, telephone, and personal attendance.

The RVSA REMEMBRANCE PARK PROJECT intends to establish a quiet place in a peaceful environment to remember the lost in each Regiment or Unit separately, growing living trees in a beautiful environment where Mahaweli tributary flows in a valley, depicting that life and peace results from loss and strife.

The Project is done by the Army, the Mahaweli Ministry, and the Private Sector, with the lead role being taken by the Ceylon Tobacco Company. A former Army Commander, Lt. Gen. Dennis Perera chairs this committee. It will enable the missing/killed in action families as well as the general public to have a peaceful place of remembrance of the patriots who defended the nation.

All these projects of the RVSA are done with private donations, with the Government providing the administrative costs.

The intention of Dr. Tara De Mel, the Adviser to the President and the first Chairperson of the RVSA, was to set up an example in Public Sector management with the full participation of the Private Sector, in the empowerment of Ranaviru and their families.

This concept is continued by the present full time Chairperson Dr. Narme Wickremesinghe and his dedicated staff of 12 graduate project and field offices, 10 others on contract and about 10 part time volunteers. The staff includes a Psychologist, and one with a Ph.D, a Lawyer. Other Professionals and Entrepreneurs are on voluntary advisory committees.

The Government has sought the best for the patriots defending the nation and created the Rana Viru Seva Authority to 'Care for those who Dare'.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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