- An International Women’s Day campaign by SEDR
Supporting Effective Dispute Resolution (SEDR) is a project that is working to strengthen the effectiveness and availability of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms in Sri Lanka for communities in the Uva, Northern, and Eastern Provinces.
This month, the SEDR project aims to talk about accelerating women’s equality through community dialogue, focussing on gender empowerment, mediation, and inclusivity.
Brunch spoke to SEDR Project Key Expert – Communications and Advocacy Manisha Amerasinghe and SEDR Project Communications Officer Sumayya Sideek to learn more about this month-long campaign and what they hope to accomplish.
Talking about why they decided to launch an International Women’s Day campaign, Amerasinghe told us that it is part of the SEDR project to focus on gender-related issues and decided to focus on the theme “Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow”. “We wanted to dedicate the campaign to gender equality in the same way our project is designed and also support Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, which is creating awareness on right-based approaches and building capacity of the project’s stakeholders and beneficiaries,” she stated.
Adding to this, Sideek stated that the SEDR project has many aspects to it and when looked into further, a part of the inclusivity aspect of the project focuses on social cohesion.
Amerasinghe also highlighted that an International Women’s Day campaign surrounding mediation and dispute resolution has not been done in the recent past, and this campaign by the SEDR project is the first of its kind and is needed to help women understand what they can do.
Explaining why they chose to use the month of March to focus on it, Sideek stated that they had been conducting quite a few activities with ground-level development officers. “With this campaign, we ensured that our stakeholders and beneficiaries are a part of discussions surrounding dispute resolution with regard to women belonging to different minorities,” she added.
This month-long campaign is a space to show that not only is the SEDR project’s work trying hard to be sustainable for tomorrow, but also to ensure that the work they do in terms of content is long lasting and goes a long way to build awareness for dispute resolution and specifically, mediation in Sri Lanka.
In order to reiterate that the SEDR project is dedicated to breaking the bias, they published a series of posts in all three languages with statements from key employees in the company that dedicated themselves to the cause. Relating the project’s work to the campaign, Biyagama Pradeshiya Sabha Development Officer J.F. Samanmali shared that to her, there is no gender bias in the mediation process.
“We hear everyone’s grievances. Empathetic sensitivity to people’s issues is the prime responsibility of a mediation officer,” she stated, adding that she chose to take on mediation as they can see many clashes among people in her area. In order to help them, she noted that it is necessary to listen to them, communicate to them, and use things like mediation to understand and identify their conflicts and issues. “One thing I have seen is that it doesn’t take long to resolve issues brought by men, whereas with women, we need to invest some time to help her understand how the system works,” she told us, adding that although the popular perception is that men don’t have issues, they do in fact have various problems. “Whereas a woman will talk about it, men will bottle them in and be stressed out mentally due to it. Therefore, I feel mediation is a very important tool for men, when we deal with people,” she shared in their campaign.
Amerasinghe also stated that the SEDR project, along with this campaign, is funded by the EU and is one element of the EU’s wider Strengthening Transformation, Reconciliation, and Inclusive Democratic Engagement (STRIDE) programme in Sri Lanka, jointly implemented by the British Council, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the World Bank.
Sideek also brought attention to the SEDR project’s work along with the Mediation Boards Commission (MBC) of Sri Lanka, together with the Ministry of Justice, where they launched a convenient dispute intake system for the public by introducing a dispute intake box at the divisional secretariat level.
They have a few more programmes coming up in the next week to complete all their goals for the campaign.
Stay tuned to their social media channels to learn more about what they do and how they can help you:
Facebook: SEDR Project
Website: www.sedrsrilanka.org
