Activities

Sri Lanka is a multi ethnic and multi religious country consists of 1.7 million populations. Sinhalese are majority community, follows by Tamil as the second bigger ethnic community. However, among Tamils, there is another minority called Indian origin Tamil who were brought by the British colonialist from India to toil in the plantation during colonial period. Since the colonial period up to the present for over five decades, the Tamil plantation community was totally segregated from rest of the local community and left out from the mainstream political process. Although the minority plantation community was able to elect their representatives to the parliament and other local governments, the community was not in position to enjoy the right to development similar to other community. In this context, ISD Initiated to work for the betterment of the marginalized plantation community.

Presently we are involved in:

GOOD GOVERNANCE EDUCATION

The special project of ISD envisages enhancing quality of life and socio-economic empowerment of the Tamil plantation working community in the target area. The overall goal is to empower the plantation youth (men and women) community to strengthen the plantation civil society in order to promote the process of good governance through practising democratic skills. The project focus on Women Voters of the local Governments, Civil Society members (local CBOs, TUs, Youth clubs), Elected members and Officials of the Local Governments.
 

The project approach mainly involves community based discussions, workshops, and street dramas as awareness raising activities. The project, even though focused on local governance, will also bring in peace building elements by targeting the local governments, in which plantation works live with neighbouring Singhalese communities.
 

SUSTAINABILITY IN THE TEA SECTOR: UTZ TEA CERTIFICATION PROGRAMME IN SRI LANKA
 

Sri Lanka is one of the oldest tea producing countries in the world and ranked third in the global tea production in 2007. One of the key challenges facing the tea industry is the inability to compete in the international market against various socio-economic and environmental standards. Tea industry in Sri Lanka is affected by the fluctuations in the export market, the changes in demand, taste and preference impact the industry.
 

The major constrains such as unstable price of green leaves and made tea, increasing cost of production in both corporate and tea sector are directly linked to the international market. Hence, the main objective of UTZ Certification is to improve the socio-economic and environmental sustainability of commodities produced and traded.

UTZ Certification

UTZ CERTIFIED (UTZ means “good inside” in Maya language) is a worldwide certification programme that sets the standard for production and sourcing of primary commodities. The mission of UTZ is to set a world standard for socially and environmentally responsible commodity production and sourcing. 

The UTZ CERTIFIED Code of conduct for tea is an internationally recognized tool to raise the level of sustainability in tea production. It is also applicable for Coffee and Coco as well. The code covers complete production process from estate to buyer. It is based on ILO conventions and Good Agricultural Practices. The certification process involves training the farmers on good agricultural practices, enhancing standard and quality of products through educating all stakeholders involved in process.

The unique traceability system of UTZ guarantees the raw material and the production process is harvested and processed in a responsible manner.

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