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High Hurdles

Sri Lanka’s tumultuous history, poverty and destruction caused by natural disasters has hindered its ability to deliver quality education. Notably, in 2004, a tsunami devastated the country’s fragile infrastructure and further intensified the suffering in historically low-income communities.

Today, tourism and the service sector industry are the primary employment options for residents from historically low-income communities, which has contributed to poverty reduction. However, according to the World Bank, while the overall unemployment rate is low at 4.34 percent, youth unemployment is high at 21.4 percent. Additionally, there is unequal and low labor force participation for women.

Still, the country has shown signs of great progress and is experiencing rapid social and cultural transformation as access to technology, electricity and mass media increases every year.

Our Work in Sri Lanka

In response to the tsunami of 2004, Room to Read decided to begin learning initiatives in Sri Lanka one year earlier than planned. We immediately went to work rebuilding schools in tsunami-affected areas and helping to create long-term infrastructure improvements, beginning in the Ampara District on the island’s eastern coast.

In 2006, we launched our Girls’ Education Program in the country to close the gender gap in various districts. In 2009, when the brutal civil war came to an end, we created programs in the Mannar District in the Northern Peninsula, which had been devastated by the war. We have partnered with the Sri Lankan government to improve the infrastructure in the region. Room to Read has now worked in seven of the country’s nine provinces. We have had significant success in improving the quality and accessibility of education for hundreds of thousands of children.