International Women of Courage Award Winner: Jansila Majeed, Sri Lanka
2010 International Women of Courage Award Winner
Jansila Majeed is the Managing Trustee of Community Trust Fund in Puttalam province. The Trust oversees a number of programs on minority and women’s issues, including women’s rights, peace building, relief work, working with young people, and mine-risk education in the North and East. Jansila Majeed’s own particular focus is on uniting the Muslim and Tamil communities in her province.
Having lived as an internally displaced person (IDP) for almost 20 years, Jansila Majeed was forcibly evicted from north province with all Muslims by The LTTE in 1990 she is an IDP Muslim from northern Srilanka , She did her early education in Jaffna Kadicha Muslim Ladies college and her A/L in Jaffna Osmaniya Muslim boys College has become an energetic activist for services for displaced Muslim and Tamil civilians, focusing particularly on grassroots programs on life skills, health, and women’s empowerment. Her activism began in 1992 with a working group of five people. She overcame both the general neglect of the problem of IDPs in the Muslim minority as well as some short of community strictures against women activists to build a broad-based organization that works on minority and women’s issues in a highly sensitive and politicized environment. For Video
