4.2 Profile of Non-governmental Organizations of/ for Persons with Disabilities

The SLFVH was founded in November 1974 by visually handicapped pioneers, primarily for the purpose of meeting the needs and aspirations and improving the quality of life of the visually handicapped community

The Employers' Federation of Ceylon (EFC) is the principal organization of employers dealing with labour and social issues in Sri-Lanka. The EFC promotes employer interests at national level and provides a wide range of direct services to its members. The membership consists of individual employers representing different business interests. Many key organizations representing different business interests are also affiliated to the EFC.

Vision: To promote social harmony through productive employment.

Mission: To encourage workers, their organizations and the Government to co-operate with business for the attainment of the following objectives:

To make employees more efficient and quality conscious
To achieve better terms and conditions of employment
To prevent industrial strife and, where disputes have arisen, to resolve them in a fair and expeditious manner
To generate employment opportunities
To provide members with services to achieve objectives of growth and stability

AKASA was established in 1995 and receives financial support from the Swedish Handicapped International Aid Foundation amongst others. AKASA members are rural women aged 18 to 40 years old and follows a bottom-up approach to development used by other grassroots NGOs in Sri Lanka. AKASA has approximately 800 active individual members in 133 small groups located in 10 sub-districts.