Youth Empowerment project – Sponsored by American Embassy
Now that the armed conflict is over in Sri Lanka, we are faced with the challenge of nation building and cohabitation. Youth will be empowered to contribute to the task of nation building when they learn to appreciate the diverse multi ethnic and multi cultural aspects of our country. Through this project we intend to provide an opportunity to youths in North, East and Western provinces to use their creativity and express themselves and to develop an ongoing dialog among themselves.
Students from Grade 10 to 13 from five schools from North, East and five schools from Colombo/suburbs will be selected. Each school will prepare a wall paper including creative poems, short stories, community event reports etc. in Tamil/Sinhala/English. Two schools, one from Colombo/suburb and one from North/East will be encouraged to interact with each other during this process. They will operate as partnering schools. The final product will be a printed tabloid including the material in the wall papers to be distributed among the youths. An annual cultural event will be held to bring the youths from three areas together to build up mutual contacts.
Periodic art competitions and debating competitions will be held to foster healthy competition and interaction among schools. The periodical/Newspaper will also include articles from eminent persons on various social issues. The contents will be in Sinhala and Tamil. The second stage of the project is to train youth in civil society activities.
