Chamara Ekananayaka

CERT-Youth is a proposal sent to Alumni Exchange Innovation Fund (AEIF)-2013 competition of US exchange students. Main goal of CERT-Youth is to strengthen the resilience of underserved rural communities in Sri Lanka to face disasters and emergency situations by providing professional emergency response training for young individuals and encouraging volunteerism. CERT-Youth is among the finalists of the AEIF-2013 competition.

I-SEE-Y, Program is designed to work with youth to research, exchange and educate youth on trends and risks in drug usage and work towards prevention. 30 Youth will be trained in behavioral change communication methodologies and they will lead project to learn trends in drug usage and to identify vulnerable communities in five selected GA divisions in Galle district Sri Lanka. These youth agents will discuss and evaluate their findings and will map actions they can take to prevent drug usage among vulnerable communities in they have identifies. Parallel to above activity I-SEE-Y youth agents will work towards educating youth studying in schools on drug usage and prevention activities while educating school children on the risk factors surrounds them to make vulnerable for drug usage. I-SEE-Y program will be integrated with DEIHERM “Tharunodhaya” group and project activities will be included in “Tharunodhaya” clubs annual activities. This proposal was submitted to UNODC 2013 Youth Initiative Fund.

Teenagers (age 13 to 19) are often ignored in the youth activities. Majority of youth program are led by youth between ages 20 to 25 years. The issues faced by youth between ages 20 to 25 years and issues teenagers want to address through their forums are different. But due to the lack of opportunity for leadership and having minimal chance for networking make teenagers to keep their issues and ideas they want to share suppressed with in them. Teenagers Network will provide a national stage for teen in Sri Lanka to take their issues and ideas to higher audience in collaboration with teens throughout the country. DEIHERM will support to create the peer group from teenagers to lead and build the teenagers network in Sri Lanka by providing them necessary leadership training and advocacy in their activities. This proposal was submitted to 2013 youth empowerment grant of American Center at US Embassy Sri Lanka.