The British High Commission in Colombo is funding the Asia Foundation Access to Justice (A2J) project’s pioneering effort to provide intensive Tamil language training for police officers from the constable to sergeant level.  These new language skills – along with insights gained through complementary discussions about ethnicity, justice, and equality – are empowering male and female police officers to serve citizens in a more effective, sensitive, and responsive manner. The A2J project in Sri Lanka is aimed to protect vulnerable citizens through both community-level interventions and formal institutions of justice

A first-hand account from WPC A. D. Samayamanthri, a participating police officer from Nuwara Eliya, highlights the value of gaining Tamil language proficiency:  “I am attached to the women and children’s desk.  Since I can now both speak and write in Tamil, I find that Tamil women victims of violence are now less reluctant to make a complaint to me.  Being a woman police officer and able to communicate in Tamil, they now trust me.  As a result of the Tamil language training I am now better able to serve the multi-ethnic community living in Lindula Division.”    

Building on the success of this effort, the Foundation envisions providing training for additional officers, including providing Sinhala language training for Tamil-speaking officers, as appropriate; supporting the implementation of language requirements in the national police and new provincial police units; and building the language training capacity of the police to conduct all future training in-house.  Across the board, new and even more effective police training materials can be developed to encourage greater cross-cultural sensitivity and improved community policing skills to enable the Sri Lanka police force to carry out its stated commitment to protect and serve all citizens.

In collaboration with the University of Colombo’s Department of Education and the Kotelawala Defence Academy, with technical input from the British Council’s Military Language Skills Project, the Foundation has trained 160 police officers. This programme is funded by the British High Commission in Colombo through the Conflict Prevention Pool (CPP) of the UK government, which is jointly managed by the Department for International Development, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence. The Police Higher Training Institute and Sri Lanka’s Department of Official Languages have been part of this training process.