Dignified empowerment for indigenous communities

Empowering the Indigenous Veddah community of Sri Lanka towards preserving their cultural, social and historic identity.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa is welcomed by the Indigenous Veddah community at the Varigasabha in 2011.

Dilmah Conservation also undertook a socio-economic assessment of the Coastal Veddah communities in the Batticaloa and Trincomalee Districts of Sri Lanka. This indigenous group was subject to grave difficulties as a consequence of the conflict and our efforts were aimed at extending support to them for sustainable livelihood initiatives. In addition to this, Dilmah Conservation has also engaged in supporting and documenting the Coastal Veddah community’s traditional Sadangu celebrations.

The lives and livelihoods of the Veddah are primarily dependent and intricately intertwined with nature. Their isolation from the mainstream community has helped preserve this identity.

Identified as the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka with a history spanning many thousand years, the Veddah continue to live in relative isolation in their forest dwellings in some of Sri Lanka’s most remote areas. Their lives and livelihoods are primarily dependent and intricately intertwined with nature. Their relative isolation from the mainstream community has helped preserve their unique identity. However in the recent past, changing times and resultant economic development have influenced and affected the continuation of their traditional lives.

In 2013, Dilmah Conservation through its Culture and Indigenous Communities Programme established a Handicraft and Pottery Centre for Sri Lanka’s Veddah community at their Community Heritage Centre in Dambana, in Sri Lanka’s Uva Province. This initiative is aimed at empowering the Veddah community and to support them with their traditional livelihoods in a dignified manner.

Additionally, Dilmah Conservation produced a publication documenting the lives and livelihoods of the indigenous Veddah community in Sri Lanka titled Indigenous Communities in Sri Lanka: The Veddah. The publication chronicles, in detail, the lives of the Coastal Veddahs of the country.

A people of the forest, this hunter-gatherer community has lived in remote jungle areas for centuries. Today, they have reconnected with other Veddah tribes in the island and gained recognition of their indigenous identity.

In 2011, Dilmah supported the Veddah community to hold a traditional gathering or Varigasabha. This special event saw the Dambana and Coastal Veddahs meet for the first time in the Eastern Province and brought together clan members from all over Sri Lanka to discuss their issues and find solutions to the problems the community faces.

The religion of the Veddahs is centred on a cult of ancestral spirits and various rituals and ceremonies. These include the famous ‘Kiri Koraha’ ceremony which is performed for their ancestral spirits. During the ritual they address themselves as the ‘People of the Forest’ and speak a distinct language which is of Indo-Aryan descent.

As a part of this initiative, Dilmah Conservation also supported the construction of the Veddah Handicraft and Pottery Centre in Dambana, which was handed over to the community in August 2013. This facility provides for the preservation of indigenous aesthetic traditions, while helping members of the community develop related income generating opportunities.