Project information
Start date: 1 September 2012
End date: 31 August 2016
Locations: Batticaloa and Trincomalee Districts, Sri Lanka
The Challenge
People with disabilities are amongst the poorest in Sri Lankan society with limited business and employment opportunities. Few are able to access education and skills training and many people with disabilities are forced to rely on their families to support them.
Our project
This project aimed to reduce the poverty and discrimination facing people with disabilities in Trincalomee and Batticaloa – post-conflict areas of Eastern Sri Lanka. It empowered people with disabilities to address their own chronic poverty for themselves, and to be better included in society. By the end of the project, 524 people with disabilities had been supported into work – 21 per cent of whom had speech/hearing impediments and 12 per cent with intellectual impediments. With Sri Lanka’s disability census estimating that 20% and 8% of the population of people with disabilities had speech and intellectual impediments respectively, the project achieved over and above the national average and was successful in reaching some of the most marginalised people with disabilities.
Project funders
Co-funded by the National Lottery Community Fund (formally the Big Lottery Fund), Trusts and individuals
