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News Release

Contact: Tom Parisi, NIU Public Affairs
(815) 753-3635

September 9, 2004

U.S. State Department boosts NIU’s efforts in Sri Lanka

DeKalb, Ill.—A Northern Illinois University initiative to bring peace to the developing island republic of Sri Lanka has attracted widespread attention by tapping a vast and largely overlooked resource: women.

Known as Project GROW, for Grassroots Organizing by Women, the initiative aims to foster democratic leadership skills in Sri Lankan women. The project this summer produced a formal appeal to Sri Lankan leaders to increase levels of political representation by women, who hold less than 5 percent of the country’s political offices.
Officials in the highest reaches of government in both the United States and Sri Lanka are singing the praises of NIU effort, so much so that the U.S. Department of State is providing $200,000 for a two-year extension of the project.

The project blossomed over the past two years, as NIU faculty members in the Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education and University Resources for Women trained four Sri Lanka women’s organizations in grassroots democracy. (The Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center is joining the extended project.)

Last year, visitors from Sri Lanka spent three weeks in DeKalb for leadership training and development. The partnership’s first phase concluded in June with a symposium held in the Columbo, the Sri Lankan capital, and attended by NIU faculty, the U.S. ambassador and the Sri Lankan prime minister and minister of women’s empowerment.

“The program has been very successful in enhancing the leadership role of women in deprived communities across the country,” said NIU Provost Ivan Legg, who was among the NIU representatives at the symposium. “The success of the program is part of the reason we received a new grant from the State Department.”

During the symposium, women’s groups presented political leaders with a declaration calling for the promotion of gender equality and democratic values, the elimination of violence in the political culture and affirmative action to ensure greater representation for women in politics.

Sri Lanka, with a population of about 19.6 million people, is located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of India. The tropical island nation has a democratic political system but has experienced widespread political strife, with periodic ethnic clashes and outbursts of civil war.

Jeffrey Lunstead, U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka, said change must occur from the ground up. “Sri Lanka is trying to solve 20 years of ethnic conflict,” he said during his symposium speech. “That can only happen if people at the grassroots insist that it must happen.”

Women in Sri Lanka have achieved high levels of equality in most areas of society, including education. “But they remain backward with respect to political representation,” said Jaya Gajanayake of the NIU International Training Office. She is director of the NIU effort and a native of Sri Lanka.

Less than 2 percent of Sri Lankan women hold local political offices, compared to 33 percent in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Women’s political representation at the national level in Sri Lanka is only slightly better. Ironically, women have had voting privileges for more than 70 years, and the country produced the world’s first female prime minister.

“Sustainable change can be accomplished through women,” Gajanayake said. “They will be better ambassadors of peace, and as the household decision makers, they are more in touch with community needs and issues. We’re making strides, but there is still a lot of work to be done.”

Eight representatives from two Sri Lankan universities will be visiting NIU this month for a three-week professional development program. The universities are developing 1-year certificate courses, teaching leadership skills for good governance at the local level.

Deborah Pierce, executive director of International Programs, said the extension of the Sri Lanka project will present exciting opportunities for NIU faculty. “The project is first and foremost a cultural exchange, with an overlay of interethnic dialogue and peacekeeping,” Pierce said. “But it also broadens the international experience of our faculty, who bring those experiences back to the classroom, enriching the education of NIU students.”

NIU Presidential Teaching Professor Gene Roth, who attended the Sri Lankan symposium and serves on the project’s advisory committee, agrees. “Our service region is intrinsically connected to the global economy, so an international component needs to be fully integrated into our curriculum and instruction,” Roth said.

“Because of my experiences in Sri Lanka and other countries, I can help students appreciate different world views and better understand complex problems or issues,” he said. “I can talk to them about the exciting research we’re doing and about the Sri Lankan villages we visited. The students in turn can meet and interact with our Sri Lankan partners when they visit NIU.”

Roth added that Gajanayake and Laurel Jeris, who served as project adviser for Project GROW, made incredible strides in a short time. “Everyone who was on the trip this summer was blown away by what these two had accomplished,” Roth said.

Other NIU faculty and staff who participating in Project GROW include Phyllis Cunningham, Sharon Howard, Kay Forest, Jorge Jeria, Catherine Raymond, Murali Krishnamurthi, Lina Ong, Cynthia Campbell and Meena Razvi.

More information on the project is available online at http://www.niu.edu/srilankaproj/.

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