ASPBAE Leadership 2010

1. ASPBAE Leadership 2010

2. Most Significant change The citizens of a village called Kaikawela in the District of Matale in the Central Province in Sri Lanka were motivated to include their names in the voter register enabling them to exercise their right of political representation in governance. Situation Analyzes Before this intervention there were number of households who did not include the eligible persons of their families in the voters list annually. This resulted in refusal of issuing ballot papers at elections to these people. And their basic right to be a citizen was refused. The annual revision of voter register is carried during the months of June, July and August every year. The practice was the village officers of the respective divisions have to visit home by home and handover applications form the Chief occupant of the families to fill and hand over them to the village officers when they come back to collect them. But since this is a remote village the village officer never did the enumeration the way if has been expected. Instead if somebody is interested in including his/her name has to go and meet the village officer collect the form fill and give back. Our Intervention To arrest this situation; we selected a team of six person's and trained team on this process. They were taught on team work and team building and communication skills with special focus on adult education techniques. They met the community and organized group discussion on democratic values. The importance of voter registration was made to understand. The techniques used were group discussion and role play. The people who participated in these discussions with one member of our team visited an average of 10 houses in their vicinity and discussed with them on the importance of their voter registration. The outcome was the chief occupant visited the village officers office collected the form and filled and gave back to the village officer. I was in charge of this operation in there districts. I took only one village as a sample for this presentation. My organization PAFFREL (Peoples Action for Free and Fair Elections) and printed posters, handouts and they were distributed at the training sessions and discussions to be distributed among the villagers. My name is AnupamaPerera. You can call me Anupama or in short Anu. I live in Boralesgamuwa south of the city of Colombo. I graduated at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, my main focus was on Labour Education. PAFFREL is the first citizen-based election watch to have been established in Sri Lanka in 1987, PAFFREL has formed a network of over 300 civil society organizations formal and informal, at national and as well as at local level, operating in different parts of the country, for obtaining collaboration in the implementation of her programmes. The primary objectives of PAFFREL are To motivate and encourage voters to exercise their basic democratic right to vote and cast their vote at all elections at which they are entitled to vote. To promote a community effort that would prevent violence and malpractices before, during and after elections.  To undertake an election watch to observe the conduct of the poll throughout the country in as many areas as possible and record and document the abuses and violations of the elections law. To make recommendations for the improvement of the existing processes and institutions pertaining to elections. qTo educate the voters in order to promote civic consciousness that helps in establishing and maintaining standards of good governance in the country. Since July 2008, I have been working as a Programme Assistant Peoples Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL). I involved in implementing PAFFREL’s various programmes and projects of promoting democratic values and good governance in our society. After this training of adult leadership I can deliver my knowledge to the community and so on. This programme is an opportunity for me in sharing experiences and learning of different nations. I am very grateful to ASPBAE for selecting me to attend this training programme. Miss. ANUPAMA PERERAapanupama@gmail.com ASPBAE Leadership 2010