From the intro to a story in
The Sunday Times in Sri Lanka:
The Leonard Cheshire Disability Resource center was established in Colombo, Sri Lanka in the year 2005, to reach out to persons with disabilities affected by the Tsunami by the LCD South Asia Regional office which is based in Bangalore, India. The office works with 22,600 persons with disabilities in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
The LCDRC office in Colombo has two filed projects located at Galle and Trincomalee with two resource centres. Its main focus is to work with persons with disabilities in thematic areas such as Inclusive Education, Livelihoods, and Support for Everyday Living and Advocacy & Campaigning. The DRCs have been playing an active role in information dissemination, resource material development and capacity building on disability in Sri Lanka. The organization works at the national level providing information and services to persons with disabilities and lobbying policy makers and other organizations to mainstream disability in their policies and programmes.
Through its two projects office, they are reaching out to 5449 persons with disabilities providing various interventions. The projects also organises and support advocacy initiatives among people with disabilities with a special emphasis on women/girls with disabilities, so that they can effectively promote their own human rights and equality within society at both local and national levels. Through its services LCRDC aims to bridge the gap that exists between persons with disabilities and service providers in Sri Lanka. its services LCRDC aims to bridge the gap that .
LCDRC has been successfully reaching out to persons with disabilities and providing them livelihood opportunities through skill development programmes, supporting in self employment, financial services, open employment and social protection. It also works towards reducing the impact of disability by providing para medical and medical interventions. It further promotes inclusive education in order to enroll children with disabilities in mainstream school through various school awareness programmes, teacher's training in handling children with disabilities, lobbying with the school authorities, making the school accessible, peer sensitisation etc. It has been successful in enrolling more than 100 children with disabilities in mainstream schools so far.
The Sunday Times spoke of to Mr. Jeevan Kodithuwakku, Programme Director and Mr. U. L. Ali Zakky, Manager - Advocacy and Campaigning the LC Disability Resource Centre to find out more about the services the centre offers.
"LCDRC was established to reach out to all categories of persons with disabilities. The center provides all services relating to disability issues. As a organization practicing rights based approach to disability, always promote the community based rehabilitation approach as a strategy rather than institutional or charity based approaches as it affect the self esteem and life of dignity. Once we identify the needs of disabled people we provide intervention accordingly in our project areas. From
livelihood support, to education, to therapy, medical support etc. For this we have a well trained staff in addition to foreign consultation services provided through our head office which is located in India. We have also formed 51 Self Help Groups for
each Grama Niladhari Divisions (GNDs), though which we train individuals on
leadership, effective communication, National and international legislations on disability etc", says Mr. Jeevan Kodithuwakku.
The LCDRC has taken a leading role in instigating the government ministries on the importance of signing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In support for this the LCDRC has organized a project under the name 'Young Voices', which was initiated by LCD London and is currently running in18 countries around the world.
"So far we have formed Young Voices groups in Galle, Trincomalee and Colombo, where the age limit is between 16 to 25 years of age. Any potential, young active individual with a disability can participate in this project which encourages young individuals to fight for the rights of other disabled individuals. The project also encourages capacity building amongst young disabled individuals where a few of them have also received the unique opportunity to visit other countries and gain knowledge. Through projects we hope to build the capacity of the future leaders of Sri Lanka", said Mr. Zakky.
From the intro to a story in The Sunday Times in Sri Lanka: