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People’s Assembly of Sri Lanka (PASL)
Combating inter-ethnic mistrust, and setting an example of good governance, Samadeepa's PASL have utilised a variety of strategies in their organisation of volunteers and NGO's in Sri Lanka's Anuradhapura district.
Description
People’s Assembly of Sri Lanka (PASL) is an ongoing programme, launched in 2000 with the support of different sectors and stakeholders, with the intention of promoting inter-religious understanding and good governance. It started based on the belief that mistrust is a main cause of conflict. People are reluctant to trust those from different ethno-religious identities due to the decades long ethnic conflict. Furthermore, organisations involved in Social Work do not trust in each other’s honest intentions to contribute to the people.
Samadeepa perceives empowering legal process as the way to build trust, and PASL was created to mobilise people to strengthen law as an unbiased group, separate from the policy makers. It promotes understanding among different ethno-religious groups and lobbies for the strengthening of law that promotes equality; therefore becoming a voice for good governance.
PASL provides its partner organisations with a structure in which to unite to strengthen law, without being trapped into power struggles, therefore reducing the chances that the joint mission will be misused.
Aims / Objectives
PASL believe that the root causes of the conflict lie in the reluctance of people to trust each other, and in faulty governance methods.PASL’s objective is to promote peace and good governance, through inter-ethnic and religious understanding and empowering law, as a way to address these root causes. As such they aim to set an example of good governance and peace through the process of this initiative, that can be a model for the country at large, and emphasise the importance of spirituality in working for people.
How it is Articulated
PASL use different strategies to promote social harmony among different groups of people and contexts. These include working in both the dominantly Sinhalese and dominantly Tamil areas, and working with people of all ages. The strategies used include workshops, seminars, meetings, peace marches, street theatre and peace songs. The programmes often are a combination of all these strategies.
The initiative practices PASL's values by treating everyone in the programme equally. In working together, they listen to everyone’s concerns and requirements, and the presidential cell of the PASL includes individuals from all religious and ethnic groups in the country who are each given equal status in all decision making situations.
Since PASL is comprised of organisations with different fields of expertise, they are able to provide training for each other, in order to improve each of their programmes that promote social harmony.
Achievements / Learning Points
Organisations working towards conflict transformation from all 9 provinces in Sri Lanka expressed interest and participated in this initiative, therefore giving it a fair geographical, ethnic, and religious representation.We found that through respect and connection to the spirituality that is the core of all religions, and to our natural-historical roots, the communities were able to build trust amongst each other, overcoming the widespread power relations and ethno-religious differences.
Therefore, the use of traditional values and roots in the initiative, created the space for everyone to belong and to work together though their problems and differences, supporting each other to be more effective in their organisational work towards conflict transformation.
The organisations that join PASL have accepted a code of ethics which they commit to follow. It is a voluntary oath to ensure the impartiality of organisations and their financial and programme transparency.
World Association for NGOs (WANGO) has accepted the value of the National Campaign on Code of Ethics and Voluntary Pledge launched through the Peoples Assembly. Further, we have learnt though this initiative that it is important to go along with the process of the initiative, adapting and changing it to suit the situational contexts. We believe that flexibility is crucial to our success with the initiative.
Geographical Area of Operation
Sri Lanka
Funding Resources
Mostly supported by the members of PASL. Partly OXFAM Hong Kong, UNDP,USAID etc.
Organisations Involved
Samadeepa Samaja Kendraya with its network of CBOs and NGOs working at different levels, nearly 200 in number.