Nearly nine months after Cyclone Ditwah caused widespread destruction across Sri Lanka, many unresolved issues continue to burden members of the Malaiyaha community. Most critically, affected community members face severe difficulties when applying for compensation and essential documents lost during the disaster, including national identity cards, birth and marriage certificates, student school records and land deeds.

This documentation gap severely restricts their access to state welfare, healthcare, formal education and basic civil rights. Several systemic barriers exacerbate this crisis:

Lack of guidance and awareness - Community members often lack technical knowledge regarding government administrative procedures and receive minimal guidance on where to start. This is being addressed as part of the Carter Centre supported intervention of the NPC through the capacitation of Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) on systemic barriers faced by their community and how to proactively address them.

Administrative and political bottlenecks - Delays are further compounded by a lack of cooperation from some state officials, complex administrative procedures and party-political bias. NPC is working with Divisional Secretariats and relevant officials, including Grama Niladhari officers, social services officers and development officers to streamline procedures for replacing lost documentation and processing compensation claims.

Language barriers - Communication is frequently hindered because the majority of state officials are Sinhalese, creating a major barrier for Tamil-speaking Malaiyaha community members. The trained HRDs will intervene and act as community mediators in this process.

Non-estate worker marginalisation - Estate residents who are not directly employed by estate companies face heightened vulnerability as estate management often prioritises current employees when endorsing official documents or providing recommendations. For example, a resident of a Nuwara Eliya estate whose entire family was affected by Cyclone Ditwah sought management’s endorsement for a request for school shoes for his children. Although his parents were still employed by the estate, management informed him that he would need to work on the estate for three months before they would validate his request. As a result, he was unable to obtain the endorsement before the submission deadline and could not submit the application to the relevant authority. He was therefore denied assistance simply because he was not employed by the estate at the time of the crisis.

Institutional gaps - There is a critical shortage of local civil society organizations dedicated to post-Ditwah recovery and advocacy. NPC is addressing this gap in the two districts by bringing together relevant Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and connecting them to the state apparatus as part of this intervention and where necessary, work together to identify gaps and address issues.

Through the Building Safe and Effective Human Rights Defenders in Malaiyaha Communities supported by the Carter Centre, NPC is working in the Nuwara Eliya and Badulla districts to address systemic barriers faced by the marginalised Malaiyaha communities. The initiative creates a multi-stakeholder network linking victims, state officials, disaster management officers, Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and HRDs to streamline document recovery. As part of this rollout, 30 active HRDs were selected across the Nuwara Eliya and Badulla districts who completed project orientation sessions, including the follow up orientation and needs assessment carried out in the Nuwara Eliya district. The participants demonstrated high engagement and commitment to leading grassroots recovery efforts within their communities.

The HRD cadre included social activists, university graduates, school teachers, local business owners and members of community-based organizations and local and international NGOs. Moving forward, these trained HRDs will facilitate and work with relevant divisional secretariat offices to conduct field level documentation clinics, liaise with the state to find long term solutions to persistent issues arising in the post Ditwah context and establish direct referral pathways to accelerate document re-issuance for affected families.