Corporates urged to focus projects in threatened villages

One of the group’s key areas of focus currently is the threatened villages in the north and the east. Picture shows a child from an IDP camp.

Damrivi, an organization of academics and professionals for social economic and spiritual development through Buddhist insights, is urging the corporate sector to support projects in villages vulnerable to the conflict.

The group which has been extending its services to all, here and abroad, irrespective of their religious, national or ethnic categories, said in a statement that one of its key areas of focus currently is the threatened villages in the north and the east.

Damrivi has engaged in these areas in psychological counseling, rain water harvesting, providing IT training for children and other educational programmes. “Some corporates have already used the services of Damrivi to manage their programmes in these areas. However there is much to be done in these areas particularly now, with the resumption of hostilities,” the group said.

Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekara, one of Damrivi’s founder Trustees and currently the Director General of the Sri Lanka Civil Security Force, said bombs and claymore mines are not the only reason villagers leave threatened villages. He says that it’s more the economic hardships, lack of social development and psychological strength that contributes largely to the suffering of these villagers. He stressed the need to retain villagers in the threatened villages as a vital factor for national security.

Damrivi’s Board of Trustees comprise Senior Professor Asanga Tilakaratne, Head of Department of Buddhist Philosophy, Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera, Asoka Sirimane, Chief Financial Officer, Sri Lanka Telecom, Dr. Pushpakumara Kandapolaarachchi, Consultant, Mental Hospital, Angoda, Ven.Tapowanaye Sutadhara Thero, Senior Lecturer, Department of Linguistics , University of Kelaniya and Ms. Yuki Sirimane, Attorney- at- Law and Solicitor, Director Operations- Damrivi Foundation.