Universal Human Development Foundation

UDHF empowers civil society to connect people across geographical, ethnic and language barriers. They also work to address domestic violence towards women and promote co-existance.

Overview

UHDF aims to strengthen and empower civil society, especially at village level, to enable them to facilitate non-violent conflict transformation. Further it conducts activities to encourage co-existence and to reduce domestic violence against women and children. According to the police records, the domestic violence rates in the area have lessened considerably during the past years, which is an indication of the impact of the work we have been doing in the areas.

In order to address conflicts that arise out of competition for resources, and to upgrade the quality of life of people UHDF provides training on income generation projects.  Further, the displaced Tamil communities who were relocated in the Buttala area, which is a predominantly Sinhalese area, were marginalised and looked down upon earlier.

 As a result of our work, this situation is gradually transforming to a state of co-existence between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities. Through the organisational work, we have formed and strengthened a multi ethnic group of people for exchange of commercial goods, connecting people across geographical, ethnic and language barriers. UHDF has learnt that peace is achieved in practice easily when we identify a common problem among the conflicting communities and focus on solving it thorough a joint mechanism as our initiative Strengthen youth commercial and experience sharing nets shows.

From having observed and participated in different programs conducted by different organisations, we have noticed that when we continue to only talk about peace and inform people about its importance and how to achieve it, when it is devoid of a practical component, peace is often limited to a conceptual level and can at times have a negative impact since the conflict situation is over and over highlighted through the process. Therefore we prefer the mechanism where the co-existence is encouraged and highlighted in practice. The attitudes of people will change automatically through leading a co-existent life with other ethnicities. Pre school age is the best way to introduce this co-existing lifestyle to children and therefore we perceive the mixed ethnic pre-school system as an extremely effective way of encouraging peace for the next generation.

What Services Are Provided?

Trainings on pre-school teaching

Conflict transformation and community leadership training for multi ethnic youth.

 Form, maintain  and mobilise community organisations

Geographical Area of Operation

Monaragala and the districts that adjoin Monaragala

Funding Resources

Flit, USAid, cha, Hope for children, Save the Children, UNDP

What Further Information Would You Like?

Information on new Peace building techniques.

Conflict management trainings.

Funding sources

What New Contacts Would You Like To Make?

Organisations who work in the peace building and conflict transformation area

Associated Organisations

District Community Based Organisations' association