PAFFREL to Monitor the upcoming election.  

PAFFREL is now making necessary arrangements to monitor the upcoming provincial council election to be held at Central and North-western province on 14th February 2009. PAFFREL is now making arrangements to set up their divisional offices and soon start the orientation programmes for local observers.

The annual Local Fund Raising Event to hold as a Musical Extravaganza  

The annual local fund raising event of PAFFREL, to be held on 28th December 2008 at the BMICH, Colombo 7. This time it’s a musical extravaganza of a veteran vocalist Rohasa Siriwardane. Mr. Siriwardene has been in the musical field for last 3 decades where he was in his peak popularity during 1980s. The event on 28th December 2008 has dedicated for his performance while remarks will be made by other co-singers of his period. A well known dancing group of Rajini Selvanayagam will make the event colorful while the orchestra will be lead by a veteran musician Visharada Majoj Peiris.

PAFFREL launched this programme with the sponsorship of National Lottery Board while the media support is provided by Independent Television Network (ITN). The tickets of this show will be available at designated location from the 1st week of December.

PAFFREL sends Long-term Election Observers for Bangladesh  

PAFFREL sends 2 long-term election observers to monitor the Bangladesh Presidential Election which is scheduled to be held on 29th December 2008. As part of the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) network based in Bangkok, PAFFREL sends these observers who will be joining with the 20 long-term observers group of ANFREL in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The role of these long-term observers are to observe the whole electoral process including the election camping period and neutrality of the election commission.

In addition to these long-term observers ANFREL will mobilize another 50 short-term observers who will be deployed throughout the Bangladesh a week before the election day. PAFFRE, as the Sri Lanka member of ANFREL will be sending another 4 as short-term observers.

Apart from its local contribution for free and fair election, PAFFREL always with the international field to helping other countries to have free and fair election, especially in Asian region.

All-island Inter-Schools Quiz winner from Batticaloa  

The final round of the above programme was held today at the Sarvodaya Headquarters Auditorium where there were close competition among the top three school selected. However, this year winners are from Batticaloa. The St. Cecilia’s Girls Maha Vidyalaya of Batticalo who the first place while the Gnanodhaya Maha Vidyalaya of Kalutara district was the 2nd runner up. The third runner up was Sri Devanada M.M. Vidyalaya of Badulla district.

The award ceremony of this programme is scheduled to be held on 10th December 2008 in Colombo. This is the 7th consecutive year PAFFREL organize this programme on the themes of Human rights and Good Governance.

Final Reports of Batticaloa and Eastern Elections Released  

The Final Election Monitoring Reports of the Batticaloa District Local Government Election (held on 10th March 2008) and the Eastern Provincial Council Election (held on 10th May 2008) have been released by PAFFREL. The two reports have details analysis of election situations including the statistics of election violence, election results and PAFFREL observers. A limited number of copies are available for interested stakeholders. Please Contact PAFFREL Resource Center on 5624722 for further details.

Next Press Conference on 19th at 10.00 a.m

The next press conference of PAFFREL relates to the Provincial Council Elections for the North Central and Sabaragamuwa will be held on 19th August at 10.00 a.m. at the auditorium of the National Libraries and Documentation Services Board at, Independent Avenue, Colombo 7. Media and interested parties are welcome

All-island Inter-schools Quiz Contest 2008

For the 7th consecutive year PAFFREL organizes the All-island inter-schools quiz contest on the themes of human rights, good governance, democracy and child rights. The quiz contest is organizing to celebrate the universal human rights day falls on 10th December. PAFFREL has started calling application from over 2500 schools throughout the country for the 2008 contest. The contest brings advanced level students into a competition on the themes at district level and national level. The event PAFFREL organize annually has improved the students knowledge on human rights, good governance and democracy and have been appreciated by both teaches and parents.

A Website to Analyze Sri Lanka Election Results  

National Democratic Institute (NDI) has successfully completed a project with the collaboration of PAFFREL and Info-share to develop a website of containing analytical information of Sri Lanka's past election results.

"One-stop Election Guide - Sri Lanka", an invaluable publication from PAFFREL  

National Democratic Institute (NDI), with the collaboration of PAFFREL developed an invaluable publication titled "One-stop Election Guide - Sri Lanka" the first its kind of book.

PAFFREL Urges postpone the Local Government Elections

Advocates citizen on Good Governance and Human Rights  

In order to advocate citizen on good governance and human rights, PAFFREL launched another series of island-wide programs in October 2005. This program will cover five selected administrative districts that are identified by PAFFREL network organizations as advocacy-needed districts. Another objective of the program is to strengthen PAFFREL network in the selected districts. Through this program PAFFREL helps the CBOs in its network to work efficiently and achieve its objectives with people’s participation. PAFFREL expects to increase the number of its local observers in the selected district by organizing various programs in frequent intervals. This program is scheduled to be completed by September 2006. This program was funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

PAFFREL Assists Estate Community to Obtain NICs 

Estate sector is still one of the disadvantaged communities in the country. From the programs conducted by PAFFREL in the Nuwara Eliya district, it was identified that a large number of people do not have the National Identity Cards (NICs) and/or Birth Certificates (BCs). Through the numerous programs conducted by PAFFREL during last several years, we have identified 15 estate communities that are facing continuous difficulties to obtain NICs and BCs. With the support of CBOs in the Nuwara Eliya district, PAFFREL decided to help these communities to obtain their NICs and BCs at a short period of time. We have collected so far more than 1000 applications for NICs and BCs from Nuwara Eliya and will be forwarded to the Department of Register of Personnel for immediate action. PAFFREL always believes this kind of civil intervention is an obligation of a people’s movement like PAFFREL. The financial support for this program was provided by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).

Constructions of Toilets for Tsunami Victims Completes    
(20th March 2006)
PAFFREL competes another major community support especially carried out for tsunami victims. In addition to the transitional shelters PAFFREL provided for the tsunami victims, 85 permanent toilets we built in order to improve the sanitary facility of the tsunami victims. In the Districts of Batticaloa and Ampara, PAFFREL built these toilets and it has not completed and handed over to the householders. This special program was funded by the CAFOD.

PAFFREL Strengthen Women in Politics…..  

PAFFREL launched an immediate series of workshops in 19 electoral districts to promote women participation in politics. This series of workshops started in March and will be concluded in the same month. For this program, PAFFREL has selected 19 electoral districts in which the local government elections are scheduled to be held 2006. One workshop in each district will be held to strengthen the women in politics. PAFFREL receives the support from CBOs in the respective districts to organize the programme. The participants for these workshops have been selected carefully and most of them are active female political activist in the area. PAFFREL brings participants from every possibly political party as an inclusive approach. In addition, civil society female activists and female who are interest in political participation also participate for the workshops. Expertise knowledge for the workshops brings from Colombo as well as from the respective districts. The workshops help to identify the weaknesses and challenges women have in political arena and discuss answers to overcome their difficulties. This program was financially supported by The Asia Foundation (TAF) and PAFFREL intends to carryout these kinds of programs at divisional levels in the future.

Observation Report on Presidential Election Releases

Final Report on PAFFREL Election Observation Mission for the Presidential Election 2005 was released at a press conference organized today. This report is a detailed report that includes all the important observations, findings and analysis of the whole election process. It also provides good source of information about the mission organization, people’s participation and international observers. During the pre-election period and the post election period of the presidential election, PAFFREL issued several interim reports and press releases and this Final report has compiled based on all those reports and statements. PAFFREL will forward this report to its stakeholders. Interested individuals can refer the report at PAFFREL resource center.  

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PAFFREL Urges postpone the Local Government Elections which is scheduled to be held in March 2006
PAFFREL has urged the President of Sri Lanka to postpone the Local Government Election which is schedule to be held in March 2006. PAFFREL believes that there are several steps to be taken before calling such an election. A copy of the letter that we wrote to the President has been forwarded to all political parties, Media and the Commissioner of Elections.
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Prize Giving of the Quiz Contest to be held on 10th December 2005
For the fort consecutive year, PAFFREL conducted an all-island inter-school quiz contest among the Advance Level students on the theme of Human Rights, Democracy and Good Governance. More than 800 schools and over 2,000 students took part for this contest representing all the districts in the country. .
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Tsunami waves struck the island of Sri Lanka, causing disaster of unimaginable magnitude affecting almost the entire coastal belt destroying the fishing industry in the country. This disaster covering 83 Divisional Secretaries' Divisions in 13 districts drew the prompt attention of civil society and within hours and in the coming days following the tragedy, the response from private individuals, the private sector and NGOs small and big were noteworthy.

with the collaboration of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka (NPC), Ahimsa, MDDR and Future Peace conducting a series of relief programmes for the victims from the Tsunami tidal waves. We have already sent goods worth more than 2 million rupees to the affected areas and preparing to send more as per requirements from the affected areas.

the 26th December 2004, PAFFREL with the cooperation of many other organization including MDDR, NPC, Future Peace, AYC and AHIMSA have carried out immediate relief distribution work in different part of the country which is affected by the Tsunami waves. Following is the areas which received relief materials from this conglomerate.

part of its fund raising activities, PAFFREL organized a musical show in which Asanga Priyamantha Peries was the Singer. Asanga is a popular young singer in the country who has been performing in public for last 15 years and this was his first one-man show.

Foundation for Conflict Studies, Colombo signs a Memorandum of Understanding on the 19th. July 2004 with PAFFREL to work on Electoral Reforms, Democracy and Peace.

violent incidents that occurred in Parliament on 8^th June have come as a shock to the entire nation. The ugly features of this shameful episode the use of physical force by members of Parliament on each other during the sessions, the resulting injuries to members of the Sangha and the act of unlawfully removing the mace from the Chamber - have deeply outraged all sections of the public. These acts have disgraced Parliament and brought dishonour to the country.

Sri Lanka, in the last few years there has been an extensive discourse and debate on the need for electoral reforms. The previous government of the UNF appointed a Select committee of Parliament to which civil society groups, individuals, Trade unions, NGOs and political parties could make recommendations for the revision of the constitution and to the laws pertaining to this. Before the committee could complete its task, General Elections were called. The main political parties included in its manifesto the need for electoral change.