In 2023 two workshops for the Religious and Priests for Human Rights (RPHR) were held in Thalawila

and in
Kandy with several participants gaining knowledge and experiences.

The first workshop was held St. Anne's

Church, Thalawila Retreat house of Chilaw
Diocese from 13th - 16th February 2023 with
37 participants from different parts of the
country. The workshop included an
exposure, inputs of resource persons,
discussions and sharing. The focus of the
workshop was on workers' rights and
hence the theme was “Ensure Dignity of
Workers and empower the voiceless”.

The exposure was to the sea fishing community,

lagoon fishing community and to a farming
community. With the findings of the exposure the
participants continued their discussions and
deliberations as they identified the hardships in their
work and rough living conditions and social &
economical challenges they face.

Rev. Fr. Nishantha

Cooray TOR made a
scriptural in put on the
dignity of the workers
and our call to ensure
that while the Political &
Economic crisis and the
aspirations of Northern society was highlighted by Fr. Jeyabalan Croos and Fr.
Nehru Croos.
The second workshop was held at Montefano Ampitiya Kandy from the 28th- 30th May 2023 Taking into
consideration the 200 years struggle of the Tea plantation community in Sri Lanka, the workshop focused on
the workers of the tea plantation community with
the theme "Let us uphold the dignity of the tea
plantation workers".

From several parts of the country 28 participants

joined the workshop. An exposure to the Tea
plantation community was made to the Knuckles
Estate in Panvila Parish. The participants had a
first-hand experience seeing the plight, the reality
of the tea plantations workers, the Upcountry
Tamil people who migrated from India and lived
in central, province who contributed to the

national economy in various ways for 200 years. Their

contribution is about a third of the total income of the
plantation sector.

Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe elaborated on this with a

presentation on ''The bitter brew of the plantation workers in
Sri Lanka while Rev. Fr. Arosh made a scriptural, input on "
Prophetic role and our calling".

The participants identified the issues faced by the tea

plantation workers such as discrimination, minimum wages, Labour right violations, inequality,
unemployment, power-sharing, and many more. Hence it was discussed that reflections of those main issues
for a common person to live par with another community equally makes difficulties and it creates a huge
disparity between them and other communities.

Further the participants identified the exploitation of

women in the plantation sector as the most marginalized
group of workers in Sri Lanka. Although the Plantation
women are contributing a lot to their families as income
earners and taking care of the entire family makes them
more exploited in their strength-wise & labour wise. The
rights of plantation people & legal remedies “were
presented by Mr. Suren D. Perera AAL and Mr. Madawa
Eriyagama while Mr. Kamaladasan AAL shared his
experiences growing up in the plantation community, the
challenges that he had to face specially when he had to continue his highest studies in the university. The need
for the church to treat, respect and ensure the “Rights” of the tea plantation workers was expressed by the
participants and to develop a strategy to ensure equality as citizens of Sri Lanka.
“Proposed security law and the Prevention of Terrorism Act“ was also discussed as an emerging issue with the
facilitation of Mr. Ruki Fernando.