The Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka is home to communities of which the majority were displaced during the war. These resettled communities still face many challenges in terms of socio-economic development, marginalized communities not gaining required access to resources, lack of capacity of the duty bearers, lack of adequate social and psychological support, poor coordination of efforts among development actors to complement each other and more. As a result of the amalgamation of all the problems faced by them, these communities show an out-migration culture especially among youth in the region. The Sri Lankan refugees in India have been showing more preference towards the return to their motherland (voluntary repatriation), they are still facing challenges in accessing accurate information with regards to the present situation and opportunities available to them in Sri Lanka. The complications they face due to the lack of civil documentation also contributes towards the decision to illegal migration.

Under the project, ADRA India and ADRA Sri Lanka are jointly working “To contribute towards creating durable social and economic solutions for communities that displays an out-migration culture”.

In India, the program capacitates the refugees living in camps in Tamil Nadu on repatriation procedures and empower them through provision of IPA and CPA to offer better service for the identified protection needs. The project sensitizes the government and other stakeholders on refugee issues; assists camps and non camp refugees with documentation support and government entitlement support and with Red Seal attestation support on education certificates. Besides, the project also creates awareness about the current job market prevailing in India and Sri Lanka, and train identified refugees on livelihood skills that are in demand and have more opportunity of securing a job in India and on their return to Sri Lanka.