The British Council libraries in Colombo, Orion City, Kandy and Jaffna screened the movie, ‘Suffragette’, a historical film from 2015, about women’s suffrage in the U.K., in celebration of the International Day of the Girl Child, on 11 October.
The film was well received by the participants.
The British Council library in Kandy also organized a panel discussion after the film screening. Panelists and special guests include; Prof. Caren Wickramagamage, Department of English, University of Peradeniya, Prof. Dileni Gunewardena - Department of Economics, University of Peradeniya, Ms. Shyamali Ranaraja, Attorney at Law, and Ms. Shashi Stephens from Women’s Development Centre and Ms. Radha Venkataraman, Assistant High Commissioner of India for Sri Lanka.
An awareness campaign about ‘What it means to be a girl in the 21st century’ was also carried out, with the young learners, performing activities with teachers at the Teaching Centres, and with customers, providing a valuable bookmark, making everyone aware of our right, and asking them to speak out and take action to stop violence against children and young people, especially, girls and young women.
Stop the Violence Campaign of Sri Lanka Girl Guides’ Association, partnered with the British Council, on this program, was conducted by sharing their views with the audience. Key messages on this session included the following
Speak up and stand up for a victim facing violence
Keeping silent when someone else is being abused, is completely wrong
Respect others for who they are, without harming their dignity and life.
Be vigilant of your surroundings
Learn self defence – it’s very useful.
We also had a panel discussion in the Colombo library, on, ‘what it means to be a girl in the 21st century,’ in October.
The three panelists were Sudarshna Gunawardena from Rights Now Collective for Democracy, Madu Dissanayake from the Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka and Chamathya Fernando from the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) Girl Champion from Asia Pacific Region for Team Girl Campaign.
The session was moderated by our own Arts Manager, Tanya Warnakulasuriya and it emphasised that adolescent girls have to be safe, educated and live a healthy life, and also, the importance of recognizing the problems that young girls face, and attend to them as one community.
The audience actively participated at the Question and Answer session, held at the end.
Those interested could collect the bookmark from any of our British Council libraries, and be part of the awareness campaign island wide.
- Shiroma Benaragama