Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne is the President of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement which is Sri Lanka’s largest non-Governmental grassroots development organisation, and is the Founding Chair of Sarvodaya Development Finance (SDF), the economic empowerment arm of the Sarvodaya Movement. A medical doctor by profession who is specialised in community medicine, Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne speaks to The Sunday Morning Business of how Sarvodaya has evolved over the years.  What were some innovative community health programmes Sarvodaya has implemented over the years?  Sarvodaya adopts a comprehensive perspective on community health, and has, over the past six decades, focused on ensuring the total well-being of each individual using a life-cycle approach.  The community health programmes initiated in the 1960s were mainly focused on children. At the time, apart from a few montessori schools scattered around Colombo, preschool education was practically non-existent. A lot of children up to five years of age received little to no support to facilitate their education or their psychosocial development, so Sarvodaya developed an early child development/preschool programme. That was Sarvodaya’s first community health programme. This was followed by activities towards controlling specific diseases, such as malaria, that were affecting rural communities. Now, the focus is on working on what is known as “social determinants of health” (SDH). Sarvodaya is working closely with the Government and mainly looks at primary prevention and early detection. The movement is currently involved in activities to prevent and control Covid-19.  Tell us about your work related to the war-affected communities in Sri Lanka.  Sarvodaya was very active in war-affected areas long before the war started and has done a lot to satisfy the basic needs of communities in the North and East since the 1960s. Sarvodaya has always been aware of the diversity in our society, with the need for harmony between different ethnic groups, reconciliation, and peace-building work being an integral part of the programme portfolio.  When the war ended in 2009, Sarvodaya immediately moved into the internal displacement camps to look after the communities, without discrimination. We assisted people in resettlement and recovery – helping them secure temporary housing, sending children back to school, rapidly starting preschools, and training preschool teachers. Sarvodaya supported livelihoods through grants and agricultural equipment and provided vocational and skills training to youth (including ex-combatants) to ensure they could build a successful life for themselves. Spreading the Sarvodaya spirit of reconciliation was the prime goal throughout all the activities.  How has working with UN agencies and other multilateral international agencies aided you in improving the way Sarvodaya works in a local context?  The first 20 years were primarily based on the local mobilisation of resources using voluntary services and local volunteers and donations. From the late 1970s onwards, Sarvodaya received support from the United Nations (UN) and other multilateral organisations. Sarvodaya works very closely with the UN system, and one of the primary mandates is to achieve the universal principles of human rights and social justice, heavily promoted by the UN. Sarvodaya has since worked closely with the UN Volunteers (UNV) and has also worked closely with UNICEF over the last 40 years in promoting child protection and addressing the basic needs of children. We also work with UNFPA on areas such as women’s empowerment and addressing gender-based violence (GBV).  With regards to multilateral development agencies, we have worked closely with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank – engaging mostly at the policy level and articulating the citizens’ voice in the decision-making process, thereby influencing policies to make it people-centric.  Tell us about the digitisation of Sarvodaya and how this aspect has helped communities and villages accelerate their growth.  From its very inception, Sarvodaya promoted the use of “appropriate technology” in village development work. Back in the day, about the construction of roads through volunteer camps, there was a need to have optimum technology such as culverts, bridges, access to hanging bridges, etc. Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne brought forth this expertise and introduced it to the villages. Another example is the implementation of gravity-fed water schemes which is now a standard technology.  Solar technology was the next step, firstly introduced in the 1980s in rural areas which had no access to the national grid.  In the 1990s computer technology was introduced along with access to the internet. Sarvodaya in partnership with the University of Colombo started a pilot “telecentre” through which they would access the internet to learn computing skills. The project was called “ICT4D” – “Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Development” and started the community digitisation drive.  This led to the birth of Sarvodaya Fusion (www.fusion.lk), the ICT empowerment arm of the Sarvodaya movement. It is a platform that trains youth on the proper use of ICT, mitigating the possible harm from the internet or through social media. The aim is to protect children from online abuse, violence, and harassment. A project called “IT Yahamaga” was launched with the endorsement of the IT industry. Through this, the Fusion team would go to schools and conduct interactive programmes for children and where possible parents, introducing the concepts of using social media, and the internet safely.  The next step of ICT empowerment is to build an empowerment process for all communities, providing evolving resources to rural communities. The communities already have a lot of resourceful individuals, products, and social and environmental assets – all of which could be used to bolster their economic standing (community tourism for example). The internet can therefore do a lot to provide economic opportunities for all. We are focusing on 200 villages in the first round and will help create a whole inventory/portfolio of village products and services and ensure they are connected with other villages to level the playing field for rural entrepreneurs and achieve economic justice.  How is the good work you are doing with the Sarvodaya Movement to help Sarvodaya Development Finance (SDF) empower rural villages?  The Sarvodaya Movement has a grassroots-level, decentralised horizontal network to help empower communities. Sharing success stories and “best practice” models is integral, living in solidarity when there is a problem is what we purport. It can be a platform to build resilience and preparedness – for combating pandemics for example where early warning and detection has to be done through a digital platform.  Access to finance is a major issue for enterprising youth and entrepreneurs. SDF, because of its outreach, can impact villages better than any other finance provider. This is because the key stakeholders are also the village communities. SDF can thereby relate to communities and feel their pulse better than other finance providers.  Introducing ethical, responsible finance is the most important requirement and ensuring loans are utilised wisely for which financial literacy is vital. SDF can contribute to the recovery of the economy through its unique financial service model and achieve its objective of serving communities in the most impactful way.  How does Sarvodaya hope to continue its good work in the coming years?  Covid-19 has resurfaced dramatically, amplifying the injustices and inequalities in the world and our society; polarisation and the widening wealth gap are also obvious and worsening.  There are three main areas we will focus on. Firstly, ensuring social harmony through a change in consciousness through spiritual development. Secondly, Sarvodaya will continue to work on social and economic development, using technological best practices and digitisation. Finally, promoting good governance (Deshodaya) to drive social and economic justice and the need for decentralised and devolved entities to ensure that village self-governance is promoted.  There are several other key topics such as tackling climate change and natural disasters. All of these and the above need to be tackled through an integrated, holistic model of development.