About
Working With Communities
"Community organization is a process by which a community identifies its needs or objectives, orders (or ranks) the needs or objectives, develops the confidence and will to work at those needs or objectives, finds the resources (internal and/or external) to deal with these needs or objectives, takes action in respect to them, and in so doing extends and develops cooperative and collaborative attitudes and practices in the community."
The Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society (SLWCS) is an international community-based organization committed to working with rural communities in Sri Lanka. If the strength of an organization is measured by the sum of the people that are integral to it, then for the SLWCS they are definitely the communities with whom the Society works in partnership and in collaboration to address a multitude of environmental, social, economic, land use, and livelihood issues and concerns. The participatory community based approach of the SLWCS is one of the primary reasons for its successes. These efforts of the Society have received international acclaim and recognition.
In 1997 when the SLWCS was initiating its seminal efforts to address human elephant conflicts (HEC), the Society selected to work with communities that had the fewest alternatives. From the very beginning the SLWCS showed a willingness to get involved at the grassroots level and engage systematically in some of the most challenging work, which was to organize communities to be effective over the long term to address HEC. The SLWCS has always strived to encourage and develop potential community leaders. Today these efforts have resulted in several community organizations that are primarily and completely lead by community leaders. The rationale and basis for the Society's participatory approach was that if provided with the proper capacity development then communities could deal with their own problems. The basic premise being people wanted change and will and can change if provided with proper guidance, right approach, tools, skills and technology. Ideally people in a community should participate in making, adjusting and controlling the changes that are taking place in their lives. External efforts to build capacity and implement development should be demand based rather than supply based which is what unfortunately happens most of the time. Moreover changes in a community that are self imposed have meaning and permanence which externally driven changes do not have. It is important to also keep in mind that communities frequently need help to get organized and become cohesive and effective bodies to deal with their needs.
Today the SLWCS works in partnership or in collaboration with a number of communities in three Administrative Provinces of Sri Lanka. In Wasgamuwa in the Central Province the Society has established two electric fence societies in the villages of Pussellayaya and Weheragalagama to manage HEC. In the villages of Irriyagasulpotha and Himbiliyakade in Wasgamuwa the SLWCS has helped the famers to form an organization to promote the cultivation of orange (Citrus sinensis) as an alternative crop to buffer them from economic damages caused by crop raiding elephants. An electric fence maintenance team has been established at the historic Somawathiya Chaitiya in the North Central Province. A number of community- based organizations for HEC mitigation, home garden development, agro-forestry and to operate a microfinance and credit program has been established at Lahugala, Pottuvil and Panama in the Eastern Province. These efforts of the Society directly benefits over 14,000 villagers and over 165,000 villagers indirectly due to the Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka (MASL) adapting some of the concepts developed by the Society for its Saving Elephants by Helping People (SEHP) project to mitigate HEC in the vast agriculture settlement schemes established by the MASL. The current focus of the SLWCS is the continued development of the internal capabilities of existing as well as new community organizations to maximize their effectiveness in managing community resources and addressing socio-economic and environmental concerns that impact their lives.
