Project to restore tsunami-hit livelihoods in Ampara, success

AMPARA: The Community Based Training for Economic Empowerment Project will organise an exhibition and sale of products of enterprises which have been established with its assistance at the Kalmunai Wesley College tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.

Ampara District Secretary Sunil Kannangara will be the chief guest while Ampara Additional Government Agent ULA Azeez will be the guest of honour.

Project Manager Sivapragasam said the exhibition will facilitate marketing of these products to local customers during the Sinhala/Hindu New Year season.

He said the beneficiaries of Back to Business Project of the Ampara Chamber of Commerce and Industry will display their products at this event.

The ILO CB-TREE Project, or Community based Training for Economic Empowerment is a joint undertaking of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Belgian Government to help Sri Lanka for the restoration of livelihoods affected by the tsunami through skills training, enterprise development and the installation of appropriate economic support mechanisms at community level.

The Project is being implemented in the Ampara district from February 2006. The Project is now in full implementation mode - just in time for the need to start providing long-term development assistance to the disaster victims. It is now ready to respond to rapid development of training assistance wherever and whenever it is needed.

The first wave of field activities of the project covered 6 tsunami-affected DS Divisions in the Ampara district.

Twenty five affected villages were reached. Community meetings and planning activities netted 50 training and enterprise projects prioritised by the target groups and they are assessed by Divisional Technical Working Groups (TWG) comprising of representatives from various sectors that were organised and trained by the Project.

The TWGs are chaired by the DS or by representatives, that showcase the direct participation of the local Government and other developments actors in the planning and implementation of programmes and projects. From the 50 projects, 17 are now on-going.

The projects have been provided with complete set of training tools and equipment and the skills training has been conducted.

Now the graduates of the training are involved in production with the use of the tools and equipment which were purchased for the training purpose.

The type of enterprises already started are welding workshop, mini garments, dairy-products making, savory-snacks making, wood carving, cement-blocks making, fruit-juice bottling, rice-flour grinding and coconut-oil expelling.

Eventually, the tools and equipment purchased for training will be turned over to the beneficiaries after the transition period of their enterprise projects.

The project has initially supported enterprise ideas originated from communities in the Kalmunai, Sainthamaruthu, Karaitivu, Nintavur and Pottuvil DS divisions.

The total number of beneficiaries from these enterprises are 200. The project plans to support altogether 90 similar community enterprises ideas in all tsunami-affected divisions in the Ampara district by the end of 2007.

It plans to establish 10 community-funds among identified communities to manage and finance enterprise ideas of individual members who wish to start either new ones or expand existing ones.