Four and a half years after the tsunami devastation hit the coastal region of Sri Lanka, the country is still recovering. Though many things have been done, like empowering communities to address their basic needs, building and repairing houses and latrines in new settlements away from the vulnerable zones, drilling wells and installing hand pumps and water tanks, there is still much to do in helping communities have access to health services and nutrition awareness. The Demographic and Health Survey identified malnutrition as a major health problem in post-independent Sri Lanka. According to the DHS 2000, malnutrition is a multifaceted problem where 22% of ever married women in the reproductive age group are malnourished, while 17% of children under five years have been born as low birth weight babies.1

ADRA Sri Lanka’s Health And Nutrition Assistance (HANA) Project, contributes to the recovery process of tsunami-affected populations providing 450 women in reproductive age and 20 midwives, in the villages of Malgampura, Kelanigama and Marakolliya in Tangalle, Hambantota Region, with education on health and nutrition matters. The HANA project, trains midwives on quality nutrition for women and children and provides equipment and refurbishing multi-purpose centers for checkups for mothers and children and for holding nutrition sessions and cooking demonstrations.

HANA project started on April 1, 2009 is funded by Swiss Solidarity and ADRA International and has duration of 18 months.

ADRA Sri Lanka has implemented at least four previous projects addressing wide aspects of needs as water, sanitation, livelihood, capacity, infrastructure of tsunami-affected populations in the Hambantota District and is currently implementing HEARTH Project in Ampara District with the purpose of improving nutritional status among infants and children under the age of 5 by using a positive deviance approach, a personal change based on the idea that practices of certain individuals in the community can lead them to function more effectively than others under the same conditions.

To learn more about our projects, please contact us at info@adrasrilanka.org

1Sri Lanka Department of Census and Statistics, http://www.statistics.gov.lk/publication/index.htm