Community Empowerment & Safe Migration (CE&SM)

Caritas Sri Lanka had the privilege of hosting Mr. Gerard Chitty and Mrs. Shivanthi Chitty, representatives of the Irasil Foundation, from February 20th to 25th, 2025. This partner visit took place across several key project locations supported by the Irasil Foundation, including Caritas Badulla, CODESEP – Galle, Caritas Kurunegala, Caritas Anuradhapura, Don Bosco School Mannar,…

A delegation from Caritas Korea, led by Executive Director Fr. Francis and Program Coordinator Ms. Agnes, recently concluded a four-day visit to Sri Lanka to evaluate ongoing projects and strengthen partnerships with Caritas Sri Lanka. The visit, which took place from March 26 to 29, 2025, included meetings with all 13 diocesan partners and field…

On April 29, 2024, the Caritas Sri Lanka Welfare Society organized the Awrudu festival for all staff members, an annual event that brings together the Sinhala and Tamil New Year with enthusiasm. This year’s celebration was marked by a series of heartfelt and culturally rich activities that showcased the traditions of Sri Lanka’s diverse communities.…

In a world hungry for change and eager for progress, Caritas Sri Lanka, fueled by the generous support of AGIAMONDO, organized a transformative youth workshop on peace-building and gender equality on November 16th and 17th, 2023 at the Caritas Chilaw Centre. Caritas Sri Lanka welcomed 9 Diocesan Centres (DCs) to participate, marking a pivotal moment…

“My name is Shanjika Kandeepan, and I live in the village called Selvanayagapuram. My life took a challenging turn when my father was abducted in 2008, leaving my twin sister and me under the care of our widowed grandmother, Mrs Maheswary Murugaiya. However, our situation shifted in 2019 when EHED Caritas, Trincomalee, stepped in to…

Rev. Fr. Oswald B Firth, OMI, was a formator, academic, administrator, peacebuilder, and activist and had been the former director of Caritas Sri Lanka SEDEC (1990-1995) during a period of major political and economic upheaval in the country with pressing social issues, particularly of development gap across regions and breeding inequality at the face of…

“Thalassemia” is a genetically inherited, non-curable but easily preventable disease in which normal hemoglobin level in a patient is partially or completely surpass and necessitates blood transfusion approximately at month intervals. The safest approach to prevent the birth of a Thalassemia child is for the carrier of the gene to marry a non-carrier. For this…

Every year, International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8 with great enthusiasm across the world to honour and treasure the women in one’s daily lives and womanhood in general. This year the theme for International Women’s day for 2022 was ‘ Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.” Caritas Sri Lanka –SEDEC celebrated International…

Social protection in Sri Lanka is a vast subject and it needs to be dealt with statistics and many aspects in detail to have a very clear picture of the subject. Since this cannot be dealt in 05 minutes I wanted to limit myself to same reflections which are common to Sri Lank and the…

In view of the next Strategic Plan of Caritas Sri Lanka – SEDEC, two contextual analysis virtual study sessions were organized recently. On 9th of June 2021, the discussion titled, “ An Analysis of the Present Socio Political Context of Sri Lanka” was organized and the guest speaker was Emeritus Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda from the…

A 2 day Knowledge Enhancement Workshop on formation of Federation was conducted to the 40 CBO leaders of the ‘Civic Dialogue Special Project for Mannar’ by Caritas Valvuthayam in close collaboration with Caritas Sri Lanka – SEDEC on 24th& 25th of March 2021, abiding by the COVID – 19 rules & regulations. The Civic Dialogue…

Under the Civic Dialogue and Cross Community Activities project, funded by Caritas Korea, a barren paddy field for 10 years in Maduragama in the district of Puttalam was harvested by the CBO members of the project on 14th of February 2020. The initiative comes as an solution to the poverty widespread in the region. Caritas…

Caritas Sri Lanka – SEDEC together with the Catholic National Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants, Talithakum Sri Lanka have organized a webinar titled, “Issues related Human Trafficking and Labour Migration in the Context of COVID 19 in Sri Lanka” on 8th of February 2021. The above programme has been organized in line with…

Caritas Sri Lanka and Kansarmen SL Foundation signed an MOU today to implement project related to water and sanitation. Representing Caritas Sri Lanka, Fr. Mahendra Gunatilleke , National Director and Mr.Chaminda Fernando Pulle, Director, Kansarmen SL Foundation signed the MOU. Under this initiative, both the organizations will work in partnership to implement projects in selected…

Caritas Sri Lanka – SEDEC with support from the Rotary Club of Capital City, Colombo helped Caritas Anuradhapura to set up a Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant to provide safe drinking water to the residents of Kaluagala and Kudagama village in the Anuradhapura district. There are thousands of families in the North Central Province including Anuradhapura…

Under the project titled, “Replacing the Experience of Integral Human Development – Civic Dialogue and Cross – Community Activities” funded by Caritas Korea, CBO leaders from 4 Dioceses namely, Anuradhapura, Badulla, Mannar and Vanni gathered in Colombo recently to discuss ways and means as to how they would form CBOs into district level federations. It…

Cambodia National Inter-Faith Forum on Combating Human Trafficking and Ending Modern Slavery was organized for the third time on 14th August 2019 and was presided over by the Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, Minister of Interior and the Chairman of National Committee for Counter Trafficking (NCCT). This forum was initiated by Caritas Cambodia and religious…

Caritas Mannar – Valvudayam started the Centre For Disabled (CFD) a little over two decade ago to cater to the needs of the poor and marginalized people in the Diocese of Mannar on 31st January 1999 under the abled leadership of visionary priest,  Rev. Fr.S.Emmanuspillai  . The main objective of setting up this specialized centre…

Rev. Sr. Mary Angela has worked at Caritas Sri Lanka-SEDEC from 1980s to 1995. She had been a wonderful character who had inspired many during her time at SEDEC. Especially her enthusiastic work forming the famous Women’s Desk at Caritas Sri Lanka-SEDEC made the organization a professional and a profound humanitarian organization in the Sri…

Caritas Sri Lanka – SEDEC carried out a Biannual Review meeting of Food Security program on 18th and 19th of July 2019 at the SEDEC Auditorium. “Addressing Causes for Poverty and Ensuring Food Security for Farming Communities”  is a Caritas Norway / NORAD funded agricultural supportive program which is being implemented through our Diocesan network,…