Capacity Building Programme for Youth on Social Responsibility

During the post war development, youth should be empowered to serve their communities. Accordingly, an interactive training program for youth in the Northern Province concluded recently. In this programme, more than 120 youths from Jaffna, Mullaithivu, Vavuniya, Kilinochchi and Mannar were trained as “community champions” who will act as driving forces of community development.

The youth received training on social issues, community diversity, community needs and issues, need assessment techniques, problem solving approaches, human rights, right to information act and project proposal writing by experts.

After the training programme, the youth will work as groups and identify community issue, come up with practical solutions, develop and implement a community project and report on it. Also SDJF and FRC will guide them to complete their projects.

“I always had a passion to do social work but I had no idea how to initiate it. This program inspired me to follow that passion and opened up an opportunity to serve my community”, said S. Amirthanayaki, a Community Champion from Mannar. Another Community Champion from Jaffna, M. Ketheiswaran noted, “this program empowered us to work as committed social workers and I hope through that we will be able to create a positive and lasting impact on the well-being of our communities”.

The programme was developed by the Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) in promotion of the UNSCR 2250 in Sri Lanka. The programme is jointly implemented by Family Rehabilitation Center with the financial support of the European Union under the project titled Rehabilitation Services for People Affected by Trauma in the Northern Province.