Everystory Sri Lanka is a feminist storytelling and knowledge-sharing collective based in Sri Lanka and working across South Asia.

This is our flagship project: Stories of Sri Lankan Women. Through this work, we aim to gather as many stories as possible of inspirational Sri Lankan women born in the 20th and 21st century whose lives, work, and experience have and have been shaped by our social, political, and cultural contexts. At this stage, we intend to create a compendium of Sri Lankan women’s stories drawing out synergies across places and contexts, spotlighting on catalytic moments, and exploring where and how we can tell feminist histories.

About the Work

In October 2021, we launched the first thirty stories collected through this work to the public. The collection, development, publishing, and launching of these stories have all been made possible by the generous support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. We are proud to present into the public domain the first thirty stories from the Stories of Sri Lankan Women project.

The women featured in this first phase are diverse, and each has her own compelling journey to share. We intentionally chose to highlight stories of women currently living and based in Sri Lanka or who have been for a greater portion of their lives. The stories span across generations, industries, experiences, race, ethnicity, religion, and historical contexts. It is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list of any kind, but rather, a glimpse of the phenomenal herstories that exist.

Through this mailing list, we will share with you the stories from the first phase of our work as they are concurrently released on our social media accounts.

You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn (where you can find tri-lingual summaries of each of the stories as well) and our Medium page.

Read the Stories

The Life of A Sri Lankan Change maker: Dr. Premala Sivaprakasapillai Sivasegaram By Sharanya Sekaram & Abilesha Segar. | by Everystory Sri Lanka | Nov, 2021 | Medium — everystorysrilanka.medium.com

 “Women have a different point of view, the way they use the roads, the public transport and even women’s reaction to drugs, medicines, the way the symptoms show. It is usually quite different, so you need to include women in all activities.”

-Dr. Premala Sivaprakasapillai Sivasegaram (Civil Engineer and Former Chief Structural Engineer, Sri Lanka

අභියෝග තිළිණ සේ ගත් — යතුරු පැදි ලෝලි යෞවනිය: හංසිකා අබේසිංහ. | by Everystory Sri Lanka | Nov, 2021 | Medium — everystorysrilanka.medium.com

“සමහරු කියනවානේ, ගැහැණු අයට මේක කරන්න බැහැ...අරක කරන්න බැහැ කියලා.... මා එයට එකඟ නොවෙමි. මා විශ්වාස කරන්නේ හැමෝටම තමාට අවශ්‍ය ඕනම දෙයක් කරන්න පුලුවන් බවයි. සමාජයේ තිබෙන වැරදි ආකල්ප හින්ද තමයි මේ වගේ චින්තනයක් ඇති වෙලා තියෙන්නේ. ඔබට අභ්‍යන්තර ශක්තියක් තිබිය යුතු අතර ඔබ, ඔබ ගැන විශ්වාස කළ යුතුය"

-හංසිකා අබේසිංහ (හෙලිබීස් රේසිං ධාවකයා)

Reclaiming her Disability: Niluka Gunawardena By Hansathi Pallewatte & Ruwani De Silva | by Everystory Sri Lanka | Nov, 2021 | Medium — everystorysrilanka.medium.com

“You're a gift to this world, regardless of how you come to this world, what your abilities or skills are. We are all diverse in that way. It's taken me almost a good 20 years to come to the realization that, no, there's nothing wrong with me.”

-Niluka Gunawardena (Disability Rights Advocate)

வரையறைகள் வேண்டாம். வாய்ப்புகள் வேண்டும் — ஏஞ்சல் குயின்டஸ் கார்த்திகா சுவேந்திரநாதன் | by Everystory Sri Lanka | Nov, 2021 | Medium — everystorysrilanka.medium.com

“நான் யாராக இருக்க வேண்டும்? நான் எப்படி அடையாளம் காணப்பட வேண்டும்?; எனக்கு இப்படி இருக்க விருப்பம் இல்லை; இவைகளை தீர்மானிப்பது நாங்கள் தான். நாம் யாருக்காகவும் எங்களை அடையாளப்படுத்த முடியாது. இந்த விடயங்களை (எமக்காக) நாம் தீர்மானிக்க வேண்டும்.”

-ஏஞ்சல் குயின்டஸ் (பணிப்பாளர், யாழ் திருநர் வலையமைப்பு மற்றும் மனித உரிமை ஏற்பாட்டாளர், யாழ்ப்பாணம்)

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