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Success Story: Gam Udawa
l
t was April 1, 1978. Prime
Minister Ranasinghe
Premadasa had arranged
for a group of government
officials from various
ministries to meet with him
in the small village of
Badalgama in Sri Lanka's
northwestern province. The
assembled guests sat under
a tamarind tree in the
center of the village. They
began a discussion with
him.
The Prime Minister asked
them to look around at the
living conditions of the
people ot Badalgama
village. The people were
living in crumbling houses
with no toilet facilities or
sanitation. There was no
clean water supply. The
villagers were the very
poorest of the poor in Sri
Lanka, living in abject
poverty. They were
rodiyas-outcasts from
society.
According to tradition the
rodiyas had once been a
high and respected caste in
ancient Sri Lankan
society. But centuries ago
members of the caste
supposedly offended the
king of that time. By royal
decree, in a punishment
considered worse than
death, the rodiyas were
sentenced to be shunned
and isolated by organized
July / August 1985
society. They were
forbidden to practice a
trade or engage in any form
of agriculture and were
henceforth conde01ned to
beg for their living.
Through generation alter
generation in the highly
organized society of Sri
Lanka each rodiya was
considered to be
loathsome and detestable,
despised by all but his or
her own kind, and not even
permitted to draw water
from the wells of the
common people.
In recent times, the
stigma has lessened to a
degree. But the rodiya of
today is typically a landless
beggar, living in a separated
village with little self-respect,
and no chance of ever
lifting himself out of
hopeless poverty.
Left to right: Youngsters
from Raddoluwa receive
instruction from elders in
Village Reawakening
Program. Processing
coconut fiber as a cottage
industry. New borne owner.
The Prime Minister called
for change. They must
reawaken the lives of the
forgotten outcasts of their
society by providing them
with decent housing and the
opportunity to lift
themselves out of centuries
of poverty.
All agreed. A
government-sponsored
self-help program was
begun. Badalgama was
rebuilt and provided with a
workshop, community
center, school and general
store. The young were
taught to read and write
while the older generation
was taught to grow rice.
lnitially the people resisted
the change, preferring to
beg. But their attitude
changed when they began
to experience the initial
beneftts of the program.
They renamed their
village Udagama meaning
"the reawakened village."
Today 27 clean new houses
stand where there were
formerly only_mud huts.
lnstead of discussing their
begging prospects for
tomorrow, villagers now talk
about their savings accounts
and the ripening rice harvest
on small plots of land they
are purchasing with
long-term interest-free loans
from the government.
Children from other
villages now play and attend
school with the youngsters
of Udagama. Their parents
come to worship at the
shrine erected in the center
of the village.
So successful was the
program to reawaken the
lives of the people of
Udagama that the lessons
learned there have become
the principies upon which a
nationwide program has
been launched. The name
of the program is "Gam
Udawa" -the Village
Reawakening.
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