The District Children and Women Committee, which looks after the safety and welfare of children and women, met 25th March at the District Secretariat auditorium under the chairmanship of District Secretary/Government Agent Jagath Therath.
265 children without birth certificates have been identified and the necessary birth certificates have been issued to 114 of them. The Divisional Secretaries pointed out that the issuance of birth certificates to 138 children has already been delayed due to factors such as the father not having a birth certificate, the parents not being present, the place of birth not being specified, the absence of a birth record, and the parents not having marriage certificates, and the District Secretary instructed the relevant departments to take the necessary steps to carry out the work quickly.
District Drug Prevention External Coordinator S.C. Thotawatta said at the meeting that efforts are being made to control drug addicts without arresting them and that 5228 people have been educated through twenty-four programs since the beginning of this year.
The health sector pointed out that Kegalle District is at a level that requires significant attention in terms of health, nutrition and mental health development.
At the time of registration in Kegalle District, 14% of pregnant mothers are malnourished and one-third of mothers are overweight. Anemia among mothers in the district is 22%. This is a significant figure. Low birth weight is 16%. Children under the age of five are underweight for their age at 18%. Height is not appropriate for their age at 10%. 21% of school children are stunted and 8% are short. Considering the above facts, Kegalle district is in a problematic situation in terms of nutritional level. Some problematic situations in the pattern of providing food to children and economic difficulties have been identified as the main reasons for this situation. It was revealed that rural and district nutrition committees should be activated to resolve this problematic situation in some way.
In the last eight years, a strong effort has been made to increase language and mathematical literacy and direct them to secondary education, and as a result, Sabaragamuwa province has been identified as the province with the highest number of students scoring more than 100 marks in the scholarship examination. It was revealed that it is a percentage of 43.66%. The Provincial Director of Education said that steps will be taken to fill the shortage of teachers in the Tamil medium primary section of difficult schools by next June.
The need to educate tutoring teachers on the hygiene measures required for children while conducting tutoring classes, safety and how to prevent children from resorting to drugs was also discussed here.
The interventions made through the Probation Department, the Labor Office, the Police Women and Children's Bureau and the way in which NGOs intervene in these activities, and several issues related to women and children that are still at a level that needs to be resolved were presented to the committee and the District Secretary instructed the necessary departments to take necessary steps for that.
This District Children and Women Committee was organized by the District Child Rights Promotion Officer, Mrs. H.M.C. Kanthi Herath and the department.
Additional District Secretary (Administration) Kusum Bandara, Assistant District Secretary Malsha L. Priyadarshani, Divisional Secretaries, representatives of government institutions, departments and non-governmental organizations related to children and women's issues were present at the event.
