Karl-Friedrich Lambardt In Action In Sri Lanka

26 years of civil war have caused repeated setbacks in Sri Lanka’s development. In many regions throughout the Southeast Asian island nation, the supply of clean drinking water is a big problem. There is often a lack of adequate sanitation and wastewater treatment facilities. This, combined with a barely existent waste disposal system, quickly leads to the spread of diseases - which, as so often, especially affects young children. The many projects run by an international aid agency aim to break this cycle and set up a functioning water supply as the basis for significantly improving living conditions in Sri Lanka. Karl-Friedrich Lambardt, Director Controlling in Gruner + Jahr’s print division, spent nine days visiting projects in various parts of the country. He was the third Bertelsmann executive selected at the Management Meeting 2010 for the unusual task of assisting with projects on the ground. Before him, Ian McClelland had travelled to Indonesia and Derk Möller to Paraguay.

“Since 1980 Plan Sri Lanka has been looking after children and projects in eight districts, grouped into three program units: the North Western program unit in Anuradhapura, the program unit based in Kandy and the Southwest program unit in Monaragala in the poorest area of the country,” says Lambardt. The projects focus on the construction of drinking water supply systems in villages in rural areas, and sanitation facilities at schools and preschools, as well as in residential buildings, he adds. They also seek to generally improve children’s general health, hygiene and nutrition, reduce domestic violence against children, and improve learning conditions and educational opportunities for children.

Upon arriving in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, the G+J manager first visited the Northwest program unit in Anuradhapura, meeting with the relevant staff on the ground as well as government officials involved in the projects. Specifically, he visited three drinking water supply and sanitation projects in the cities of Randuwa, Tuppityawa and Nelumvila. “Each of them will eventually supply more than 200 families with drinking water, and equip as many as 90 additional families in each village with sanitary facilities,” says Lambardt. Part of the money for this came from the state government, with additional funds from Plan Sri Lanka and other participating nonprofits - as well as the villages themselves. “In the spirit of effective aid, the aid agency takes great care to make sure that the people themselves are involved in the measures and take responsibility from the start,” says Lambardt.

Therefore, a Community Based Organization (CBO) is first established to deal with the construction of various facilities, he says. The fountain and 15-meter high water reservoir are drilled and erected by outside companies. The CBO is then responsible for laying about 20 km of pipelines in the village – but with professional instruction - and constructing the sanitary facilities. “At the same time the villagers also learn how to keep the sanitary facilities clean, how to maintain the mains and pump, and how to dispose of waste,” says Lambardt.

To ensure the aid remains effective long-term, Plan Sri Lanka supports the Community Based Organizations for another two years after the project is completed. “And it really works,” says Lambardt, “I was able to see this for myself when I visited a village council where the former CBO chairman is now responsible for the maintenance of the pump, and his former assistant is in charge of the CBO’s accounts and collecting the villagers’ water fees for the cubic meters used.” Residents regularly pay a small fee to a community-based fund to finance future construction and repairs. The CBO of the village Lambardt visited has in fact just built a second well with money from such a fund.

The Bertelsmann manager also visited the region of Kandy, where Plan Sri Lanka plans to set up sanitation facilities at schools and other places and improve the drinking water supply. The project is aptly named “WASH” - “Water and Sanitation Hygiene.” “It involves such things as capturing the surface water or rainwater from the roof of the school building via a filter system into each water storage tanks of various sizes - depending on the number of students,” says Lambardt. About five liters per day per student are required for sanitary and hygienic measures. The G+J executive spoke with the local project managers about whether and how these projects can be optimized, discussing the concepts with them. He was specifically asked to give comments and suggestions. “It was important to me, for example, that environmental considerations should also play a role in the WASH project in the schools, as there was a garbage dump of plastic, paper and organic waste on the school grounds,” says Lambardt. “This, of course, makes it more difficult to assert the health and hygiene measures.”

Finally, in the Southeast program unit, Lambardt had the opportunity to participate in a brainstorming session for a new project at a school: “On a Hindu holiday, students, teachers and parents got together to think about what they wanted their school to look in future,” says Lambardt. “The staffer moderated the discussion and kept it going. First, each of three groups developed their own ideas, which were then compared with the others and ranked according to priority.” In the end teams responsible for each topic were formed, which had the task of developing concrete measures for these topics. “I learned how this seemingly bureaucratic principle might look in real life at a preschool and a school for first to eighth graders,” says the G+J manager. For instance, a new building with several rooms was built for the preschool, in which 50 children can play, paint and build models with the help of two teachers. Furthermore, the children acquire a basic knowledge of the Sinhala and Tamil languages, their first words of English, and a little mathematics. “At the elementary and middle school, besides a small library students were able to use a computer lab with six computers on which they write, lay out and print a monthly newspaper for all students, or create a radio program for a local station,” says Lambardt. The students there also tend a herb garden and vegetable beds, and plant trees that are rather rare in their region.

“At the three schools I visited, I was able to experience first-hand the enthusiasm and willingness of teachers, pupils and parents to seize the opportunity the aid agency has given them,” says Lambardt summing up his impressions. He believes in the long-term impact of this kind of support : “Accepting responsibility and being able to contribute their own ideas to the project means that everyone involved identifies with the project and continues it after the aid agency is no longer involved.

“I was very impressed with the people’s friendliness, openness, hospitality, their willingness and determination to improve their situation and actively help to do so,” concludes the G+J staff member. “For me it remains an unforgettable experience with lots of new impressions and insights from a beautiful country with many contradictions, that is slowly beginning to develop again now that the civil war has ended.”