MINUTES OF THE CORE ADVISORY GROUP (CAG) HELD ON 10TH DECEMBER 2004
AT MUSLIM WOMEN’S RESEARCH AND ACTION FORUM (MWRAF) AT 9.30 A.M.
:
Present
Ms Jezima Ismail - MWRAF
Ms Seela Ebert - Agromart
Ms Leelangi Wanasundera – CENWOR
Ms Amara Peeris – Sarvodaya
Ms Ranjini Manuelpillai – Agromart
Ms Indrani Iriyagolla – Sinhala Kantha Abhivurdhi Sangama
Mr T M K B Tennakoon - SLIDA
Ms Indrani Sugathadasa
Apologies
Prof Uma Coomarswamy – Open University
Prof Swarna Jayaweera - CENWOR
Ms Jezima Ismail chaired the meeting.
The minutes of the previous meeting held on 15th November, 2004 were confirmed
unanimously. Dr Tennakoon mentioned that Lauren would arrive in Sri Lanka on the 3 rd of
January, 2005. Seela said that a teleconference was scheduled on the 25th of January, 2005 at
8.00 a.m.
Discussion points of the meeting and decisions made:

The members of the advisory group discussed the issue of obtaining approval from the
cabinet to allocate 1/3rd of all seats to women candidates at local Government level. At
present there was only 1.7% representation and much needs to be done to address this
important issue of women’s participation and nomination.

The CAG proposals in draft form are to be presented to the National Committee on
Women for review before being presented to the National sub-committee appointed by
the Cabinet comprising of four Ministers and also to heads of all political parties. The
draft paper should highlight important reasons for the rationale of women’s participation,
rather than watered down ones such as housewives being empowered to enter parliament,
as mentioned in the draft.

Ms Ismail suggested reviewing the Indian Constitution and looking into to the clause/s
where the ratio for women’s representation was defined. Seela to obtain the Indian
document for review and Ms Ismail too would consult organisations with similar interests
and look into the possibility of other leaders to support this initiative. Indrani Irriyagola
said that genuine women will come forward and change local level representation.

Re Diploma in Participatory Governance and Local Leadership
The course will require approval by the Council and Senate of the Open University, so
that the certification could be awarded by NIU, SLIDA and the Open University
accordingly, or else any alternative arrangements would have to be made. Ms Ismail said
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that she would work with the Open University and try obtaining the approval for the
training modules.



Mr Tennakoon together with the team members agreed that the course would commence
on Monday 24th January 2005 at SLIDA. The course will be for a period of one year
with one full day per week, (Fridays), making a total of 4 days per month to conduct the
workshops and seminars. The first week would be a residential and orientation workshop
aimed at building skills in learning how to learn and working in teams as well leadership
training. He said the course would be in two components. The initial 6 months would be
of certificate level leading to the one year Diploma.
Seela said that entire contents of each module could be incorporated into the Distance
Learning training method of the Open University once the approval was obtained. Ms
Ismail said that with SLIDA’s assistance the course could be translated into Sinhala and
Tamil and be available for distance learning. Dr Tennakoon said the modules and course
content would also be available on the SLIDA website too
A comprehensive document on the Diploma course was circulated to all members
outlining content areas and modules. The course would be conducted in English by
resource persons selected from the Open University, University of Peradeniya and
SLIDA. It would be offered free of charge to the selected participants. Mr Tennakoon
said the quantum allocated per annum for the Diploma course was US$,12,000.

Indrani Iriyagolla said that it was important to discuss the modality of incorporating new
trends in local leadership that will lead to conflict transformation.

Leelangani said that much emphasis has to be on the gender component and Mr
Tennakoon said that it was a difficult task to incorporate. The course has a module of at
least 15 hours. It was not a popular module and participants were not very interested in
this topic. Indrani Sugathadasa said that it was important to incorporate gender into every
module and have a separate module as well. She said that gender is not understood by
most participants. She also said to use practical women’s experiences explaining the
realities as the concept of gender is complicated. At times it was useful to use outside
resource persons to reach out successfully to the participants. Seela said that Gender
rights could be incorporated with human rights and that gender training has to change
attitudes. Indrani Irriyagola said that gender sensitization is a must as harassment at work
places; transport etc is taken as a joke. Dr Tennakoon said it was important to work with
the Media to promote gender. Indrani Sugathadasa said that at times the media, eg. radio
send wrong messages on domestic violence.
It was agreed by the group present that participants for the course should be identified and
screened as early as possible so that interviews could be conducted. The potential
participants should have a fair knowledge of the English language and be dedicated
community workers who would enhance individual, institutional and community capacity
for effective participation in grass root democracy. A participant selection criteria outline
was distributed to the group members. The participants, a total of 25, would be from the
following :

SLIDA
5
SLILG
5
NGO Coalition
15
And GROW I Partners
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Agromart, CENWOR, Sarvodaya and MWRAF would each select 2 participants each
from their partner grassroots groups and provide names at an early date so that
interviews could be conducted and the list finalised. Leelangani said that she would
get the NGO coalition members like LHRD, Pearl Stevens etc to nominate more
Sinhala speaking participants as Seela had Tamil speaking participants and also to
contact Wimali Karunaratne for names of participants.


It was also agreed that there should be no strict age limit in the selection, and the limit
could be raised to 45 years, but also to look for committed workers who can be found
in the groups who would be effective participants. This would enhance leadership
skills of women’s coalitions in Sri Lanka through training in Advocacy strategies for
effective policy formulation.
Financial Decisions
Initially Mr Tennakoon suggested the participants be paid a sum of Rs.500/- per diem
inclusive of travel for each. This was seen by the other members of the group as a
disadvantage to participants travelling from further distances and it was then agreed to
mention ‘reasonable’ travel. The per diem would be given for participation and
payments would be considered individually as per distance. Seela said to roughly
mention that Rs.2,000/- would be paid per month for travel and accommodation. Ms
Ismail also said that the program should have a contingency plan and budget in place
when finalising details for the training.
Other business discussed:
 Ms Ismail suggested that if another donor offered funds could the course be in two
components: theory and activity? The same core committee could be the steering
committee so that people know what the group can do and is being done. Seela said
that it was possible and the present course could associate with the new funding with
separate budgets.

Seela said that the GROW project needs a follow-up component and Dr Tennakoon
suggested that the group send a proposal to USAID who will assist the project in
future. Ms Ismail said that the success of the project will show future donors the
strength of the project to reach out to grassroots groups.
Sub Committee
The sub committee comprising of Ranjini Manuelpillai, Indrani Iriyagolla and Indrani
Sugathadasa will meet on 14th December 2004 at Agromart Foundation to finalise the
memorandum to be sent to the Ministerial Sub committee on women’s representation at
the Local Government level.
The next meeting will be decided upon after Laurel’s arrival on 3rd January 2005 in
consultation with the CAG members and Laurel.
Seela Ebert
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