Profile and History

1982 saw the inauguration of the Women’s Education Centre (WEC). Founded by a small group of feminist researchers and activists, the aim of WEC was to highlight the status of Sri Lankan women and to publish material to further the feminist movement of Sri Lanka. The broad objectives of WEC were to increase womens’ awareness, resources, and opportunities to promote the effective participation of Sri Lankan women in all aspects of economic, political and social life.

WEC has broadened its horizons and made a foray into research on womens’ issues. Reflecting the introduction of this aspect into its programmes, WEC became the Women’s Education and Research Centre (WERC) in 1991.

WERC is a non governmental organisation which receives financial support and funding from various organisations. WERC welcomes new partnerships to continue its work in striving to combat violence and discrimination against women and children on all levels – political, social, religious and economic – and to fight for comprehensive change in all spheres of social life.

Vision

A gender sensitive equal and equitable society, in which the rights, freedoms, autonomy and aspirations of women are recognized, upheld and realized.

Mission

To work towards achieving gender justice through education, research, consciousness raising, capacity building and advocacy by using intersectional feminist approaches.

Objectives
  • To disseminate knowledge on gender issues to women and men through research, seminars, workshops, conferences, publications.
  • To reach out to women of the marginalised sections such as conflict affected women, women workers in the FTZ, plantations, migrant and sex workers with programmes to empower them economically.
  • To lobby with the state to initiate and implement gender policies based on our interactions with women and our research findings.
  • To expand the tri-lingual collection of publications and research materials for WERC’s library and reach out to more readers.