Rural Development Foundation (RDF)

This organisation works with communities from under-developed rural areas to improve their social and economic situation. They also work with Internally Displaced Persons in rural areas in order to help their immediate situation and give them better post-conflict prospects.

Overview

The Rural Development Foundation (RDF) is a humanitarian, non profit-making, voluntary, Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO). RDF was founded in September 1984 at Periyamadu village in the Mannar district by 13 service minded people with the vision of ensuring a sustainable and high standard of living for the under-privileged in war-affected areas.

RDF hopes to provide under-privileged people in these areas with social mobility, start-up assistance, infrastructure facilities, and appropriate guidance in order to lead them to sustainability in living standards and reconciliation within themselves and with others ethnicities.

The organisational objectives focus on instilling mutual understanding among the target groups and promoting the ethics necessary for a harmonious life in a multi-cultural environment. They try to achieve this by encouraging educational programs, being involved in reconciliation activities, and providing appropriate training and infrastructure assistance to the resettled families.

What Services Are Provided?

• The provision of relief items to the displaced communities and people and other communities made vulnerable by the conflict;
• Provision of infrastructure assistance to the returning IDPs for them to restart life and for their stabilisation;
• The renovation of irrigation tanks for farming communities to enhance agriculture activities and to improve living conditions in areas decimated by the conflict;
• Protection to IDPs in welfare centers against sexual and gender based violence; and
• Training programmes to NGO and Government staff, and members of organisations based in the community, in capacity building, human rights, peace, conflict resolution, project design, community mobilisation, the writing of project proposals, protection evaluation, project accounting, and in logical framework analysis for project writing.

Geographical Area of Operation

Mannar, Vavuniya, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Ampara, Puttalam, and Anuradhapura districts in the Northern, North-Central, North-Western, and Eastern Provinces.

Funding Resources

• UN agencies;
• International NGO’s;
• Diplomatic Missions; and
  
• The World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

What Further Information Would You Like?

• Information on sources of funding;
• Information on technical assistance on project-writing in peace building and conflict transformation;
• Information on agencies willing to donate a vehicle for the organisation;
• Information and experiences from foreign experts; and
• Foreign exposure visits on the ways of managing the communities of IDP's.

What New Contacts Would You Like To Make?

• Foreign organisations working with IDPs, to learn about their styles of working;
• Contact with foreign diplomatic missions and international donor agencies who can support us with proper guidance to enhance our organisation and who can offer support by providing technical assistance to develop civil society and rural economy; and
• With people who would like to support us and to give us opportunities to visit countries close to Sri Lanka to see how IDPs' camps are maintained there.

Associated Organisations

Different community based organizations in the districts of Vavuniya, Mannar, Puttalam, Trincomalee, Baticaloa, Ampara and Anuradhapira.