Sunday Times 2
Rotary Uptown, WIF and Samurdhi launch ‘Dear Father’
View(s):The Rotary Club of Colombo Uptown, Women’s International Foundation (WIF) and Department of Samurdhi Development launched ‘Dear Father’, a national-level initiative to empower fathers in Sri Lanka against the emerging ‘fatherlessness’ (non-involvement of fathers) in society and to help fathers effectively integrate into the family fabric.
The programme aims to create a movement to promote equitable, responsive, and non-violent fathers by promoting positive masculinities and helping them get involved in the family fabric which in turn promotes women’s holistic empowerment, contributes towards the positive development of the children, and advance local communities and Sri Lanka at large.
The ‘Dear Father’ programme has been rolled out to 500 Samurdhi development officers in the Colombo District, and will be expanded to other districts. Awareness sessions were supported by Pan Asia Bank.
The programme was presented to Rotary International President, Gordon R McInally by Rotary Governor for Sri Lanka and Maldives Jerome Rajendram, President Rotary Club of Colombo Uptown Delan Silva and Project Chair and Founder WIF Seroshi Nandasiri.
Implementation is built on a 3E model of Educate-Engage-Empower and expects to create a network of 5,000 fathers from Colombo. These fathers will be supported as ‘involved fathers’ who are equitable in terms of being active caregivers, joint responsibility for domestic chores and championing the rights of women and children. They will also be responsive in terms of taking personal accountability, and non-violent in terms of being effective communicators and problem solvers, adopting positive discipline for children, and actively engaged in combatting violence against women and girls.