Activities

Sri Lanka is a multi ethnic and multi religious country consists of 1.7 million populations. Sinhalese are majority community, follows by Tamil as the second bigger ethnic community. However, among Tamils, there is another minority called Indian origin Tamil who were brought by the British colonialist from India to toil in the plantation during colonial period. Since the colonial period up to the present for over five decades, the Tamil plantation community was totally segregated from rest of the local community and left out from the mainstream political process. Although the minority plantation community was able to elect their representatives to the parliament and other local governments, the community was not in position to enjoy the right to development similar to other community. In this context, ISD Initiated to work for the betterment of the marginalized plantation community.

PAST Activities

EDUCATION

To promote the primary and secondary education in the plantation sector ISD had initiated a campaign in 1995 organising a symposium on plantation education and submitted the out come to the policy makers. The policymakers of the country brought number of action plans to uplift the plantation children’s primary education.

OBTAINING CITIZENSHIP

Since 1997, ISD initiated a vigorous campaign for granting citizenship for the remaining four hundred thousand stateless plantation community jointly with trade unions and other civil society organisations. In 2003 the government solved the stateless problem of the community by bringing an amendment to the citizenship act. This is a great achievement of the organisation and the community.

MUSEUM

The institution had created a museum and archive to preserve and protect the cultural heritage of tea plantation worker community. This is the first worker museum in the country and also first tea workers museum of the tea producing countries.

ITD

Through regional network among the tea producing countries ISD was able to declare an International Tea Day to highlight the issues of the plantation workers in local and global arena. The International Tea Day was observed in Sri Lanka and worldwide for the 4th consecutive time this year under the theme of "Empower Women Workers in Tea Plantations". The observance of International Tea Day was declared in 2005 at the World Social Form held in PorteAlgre with consensus of trade unions and civil society works in the Tea producing country with the overall objective to protect the rights of the tea plantation workers and small growers in the context of globalization. The Institute of Social Development and CEC New Delhi played a major role to advocate the consensus and declare the day on 15th December. The first and second International tea Day was observed in 2005 at New Delhi and the Second International Tea Day was observed in Sri Lanka. Following this ITD was observed in respected countries.

DOCUMENTARY

ISD had produced two Docu-drama films highlighting the Day’s life of plantation woman and domestic violence and second one highlighted the cultural taboo of Hindu Tamil girls faced in the society due to puberty related issues.

Women's Rights

Additionally, ISD carried out a sensitizing programme on trade union rights and women’s rights among the plantation women workers while advocating on right issues of plantation community. As a result of the sensitization programme, working women created a network called Working Women’s Front(WWF).

NETWORKS
The organization has linkage with local and international networks such as Plantation Sector Social Forum, Forum for Plantation Civil Organization, Janahawakasam, Charka network, South Asian forum for Excluded Women, Tea Alliance, South Asian Forum for CSR and ex-member of AWID. In addition, ISD played an instrumental role in getting the international tea day declared.

RIGHTS
ISD actively involved in areas of civic rights covering gender, labour, and human right specially focussing on plantation sector since this is a marginalized community of Sri Lanka who are deprived of basic human rights. From 2001 onwards, ISD initiated another campaign to win the housing and land right of the plantation workers following the study on housing rights.

Presently we are involved in:

GOOD Governance Education
The special project of ISD envisages enhancing quality of life and socio-economic empowerment of the Tamil plantation working community in the target area. The overall goal is to empower the plantation youth (men and women) community to strengthen the plantation civil society in order to promote the process of good governance through practising democratic skills. The project focus on Women Voters of the local Governments, Civil Society members (local CBOs, TUs, Youth clubs), Elected members and Officials of the Local Governments.

The project approach mainly involves community based discussions, workshops, and street dramas as awareness raising activities. The project, even though focused on local governance, will also bring in peace building elements by targeting the local governments, in which plantation works live with neighbouring Singhalese communities.

Sustainability in the Tea Sector: UTZ Tea Pilot Projects in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is one of the oldest tea producing countries in the world and ranked third in the global tea production in 2007. One of the key challenges facing the tea industry is the inability to compete in the international market against various socio-economic and environmental standards. Tea industry in Sri Lanka is affected by the fluctuations in the export market; the changes in demand, taste and preference impact the industry.

The major constrains such as unstable price of green leaves and made tea, increasing cost of production in both corporate and tea sector are directly linked to the international market. Hence, the main objective of UTZ Certification is to improve the socio-economic and environmental sustainability of commodities produced and traded.

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