"We're going to the people"

Colombo (News1st) -  In what The Japan Times described as a concept "the world can learn from", Gammadda commenced on the 18th of July, it's island-wide 'walk & talk', in partnership with The University of Peradeniya. This is the fourth consecutive year in which the DOOR-TO-DOOR campaign has been organised, and what will follow is a comprehensive report on its findings. Teams of young volunteers from The Gammadda Movement and the University will literally walk from door to door, across over a thousand villages in all 25 Districts, collating information on the quality of life of people living in Sri Lanka. In years before, the DOOR-TO-DOOR campaign proved to be a wake-up call to the government, when a shocking prevalence of poverty was highlighted. So much so that it prompted President Maithripala Sirisena to declare the year 2017 as a 'Year of Poverty alleviation', ultimately without much impact. Chevaan Daniel, Executive Group Director of The Capital Maharaja Organisation speaking on the findings from three years of work noted that poverty in Sri Lanka is a relational phenomenon rather than a discrete one, with "inequality and income disparity being a major concern". The 'Gammadda door-to-door' project will continue for several weeks after which the arduous task of analysing the data will commence. Perhaps the most important phase comes after this, and this is what has made Gammadda different; specific projects identified as critical to the people of a particular village, are taken on and resolved.