A workshop was held from 18 – 20 August 2010 inColombofor potential women candidates for the local government elections. It was attended by 40 participants from Kurunegala, Puttlum, Monaragala, Badulla andGalle. They were trained in various aspects such as facing the media, profiling yourself in print media, writing articles to newspapers, public speaking, etc.

WMC felicitated the 13 female Members of Parliament elected to the 7th Parliament of Sri Lanka from the 2010 Parliamentary Election. Minister of Child Development & Women’s Affairs Tissa Karaliyadde was Chief Guest at the event. Those felicitated included Sumedha Jayasena, Nirupama Rajapakse, Sudarshani Fernandopulle, Rosy Senanayake, Malani Fonseka, Kamala Ranatunga, Thalatha Atukorale, Sriyani Wijewickrama, … Continue reading Felicitation ceremony for the women MPs of the 7th Parliament

WMC organized an extensive media campaign in order to raise awareness about the limited representation of women in the Sri Lankan political arena and to increase women’s participation at the 2010 Parliamentary Election. Newspaper advertisementswere published in leading Sinhala, Tamil and English language newspapers highlighting the fact that although 52% of the country’s population consists of … Continue reading Media Campaign for increasing women’s participation at the 2010 Parliamentary Election

A media briefing was held on the 17th of February 2010 where all party representatives addressed the media on issues related to women’s representation at elections and in particular about increasing the number of women nominations for the upcoming parliamentary election. Some of the speakers at the event included Western Provincial Council MPs Ashoka Lankathilake … Continue reading Media Briefing on Increasing Women’s Participation at the 2010 Parliamentary Election

In Sri Lanka women constitute less than 6% of Parliament, 5% of Provincial Councils and 2% in Local Councils. These statistics are the lowest in South Asia and Sri Lanka is the only country in the region without a quota for women in Local Councils. One of the main reasons for such low representation has … Continue reading Nominations and Votes for Women

January – June 2009 WMC launched this project in 2007 and it was continued in the following years with the same objectives of increasing women’s knowledge of local government, building their capacity to contest local government elections, helping them enable good governance, etc. The observation teams continued the monitoring of selected Local Councils in Kurunegala, … Continue reading Strengthening Governance and Increasing Women’s Representation in Local Government (Kurunegala, Monaragala, Badulla)