Sri Lanka currently ranks 122nd out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2024, a reflection of the ongoing journey toward greater gender balance. While gaps in leadership rep- resentation, employment, and safety remain, there is also growing momentum for change. The British Council has been active in Sri Lanka since 1949. Through collaborations with diverse partners, we actively promote equality and inclusion, providing a strong foundation for gender-focused work. Orlando Edwards, Country Director of British Council, Sri Lanka highlights how the organisation is contributing to this shift by integrating gender equality in its programmes and expanding opportunities for Sri Lanka’s youth.
How does the British Council ensure that its gender equality programmes don’t just empower individual women, but also transform the structural and institutional systems that hold them back?
The British Council’s approach to gender equality is about creating systems that support long-term structural change and at the heart of this is equitable access to high-quality English language education, particularly for girls from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. English is more than a subject, it’s a gateway to higher education, employment, and global engagement. When girls can communicate with confidence, they gain personal agency that ripples outward into their families, communities, and institutions.
We’re also addressing structural inequalities at the intersection of gender and climate change. Through the Educating Girls for Climate Action (EGCA) programme in partnership with the Sri Lanka Girl Guides Association we are empowering girls aged 12–17 to lead climate education and advocacy in their communities. Participants develop public speaking skills, environmental literacy, and climate leadership transforming not only their own future but influencing how climate action is understood and practised at the grassroots.
In Sri Lanka and similar societies, what strategies have proven most effective in changing deeply rooted gender norms and how are these changes sustained across generations?
Working with youth is critical. We help them challenge stereotypes, model equality in their communities, and build the confidence to pursue opportunities beyond traditional expectations. When young people of all genders are encouraged to think critically, collaborate, and lead, change is embedded more deeply and sustained across generations. This combination of practical skills, inclusive opportunities, and a broad-based empowerment approach has proven most effective in shifting gender norms and ensuring progress lasts.
Partnerships amplify our efforts. Collaborations with groups like the Sri Lanka Girl Guides Association allow us to integrate leadership, resilience, and even climate action into gender-focused programmes. Our partnership with ChildFund on the EDGE programme further strengthens this work by equipping adolescent girls with critical skills, confidence, and peer networks that help them thrive in education and employment. These networks ensure equality is not seen as an external agenda, but as a lived, intergenerational reality. Most importantly,
we embed gender equality directly into everyday teaching. This ensures progress is not a one-off project but a permanent feature of education systems.
In many communities, male allies are essential to progress. How are men and boys being engaged in rethinking gender roles and actively supporting change from within?
Achieving gender equality requires a whole-of-community approach. It is not only about creating opportunities for women and girls, but also about equipping men and boys to see themselves as champions of equality. That means providing spaces where they can question traditional norms, engage in open dialogue and model new forms of leadership grounded in respect and inclusion.
Across our programmes, this is embedded by design. Teacher training, for instance, ensures all educators, regardless of gender — are equipped with gender-sensitive pedagogy so that classrooms themselves become environments where stereotypes are challenged and inclusive behaviours are normalised. Similarly, in our partnership with ChildFund on the English and Digital for Girls’ Education (EDGE) programme, the peer-led model encourages girls to lead while also drawing in boys, families, and community leaders. What emerges is not a separate conversation, but a shared movement: young women building skills and confidence and young men recognising their role in ensuring those gains are sustained.
Youth are often at the forefront of social change, yet constrained by entrenched hierarchies. How do your
initiatives equip young women in Sri Lanka and globally to navigate, challenge, and reshape these systems?
Since its launch in 2023, the English and Digital for Girls’ Education (EDGE) programme has reached across five districts Nuwara Eliya, Dambulla, Monaragala, Puttalam and Colombo empowering over 2,000 adolescent girls, trained 200 peer leaders through 100+ EDGE clubs. While strengthening English and digital literacy, the programme also creates space to discuss digital safety, menstrual health, gender equality, and future planning—areas often left out of formal education but vital for agency.
What makes EDGE distinctive is its peer-led model. Young Sri Lankan women step into leadership roles, guiding their peers and becoming visible role models within their schools and communities. This creates ripple effects: challenging stereotypes, normalising women’s leadership, and shifting community attitudes from within. By linking these local efforts with global peer networks, we ensure that Sri Lankan youth are not only beneficiaries of change, but active contributors to a more inclusive and equitable future.
In Sri Lanka’s diverse cultural landscape, how do you balance respect for tradition with the need to confront and transform harmful practices that limit gender equality?
In Sri Lanka’s diverse cultural landscape, respect for tradition must go hand in hand with the courage to challenge practices that limit opportunities for women and girls. We focus on approaches that resonate locally and are shaped in collaboration with communities, ensuring change feels authentic rather than externally imposed. By linking young people, educators and creative practitioners to international peers, we not only strengthen skills and confidence but also broaden horizons and create solidarity across borders.
Equally important is how we embed gender equality directly into education systems, teacher training, and cultural spaces, so that equality is not treated as a standalone project, but as a sustained principle shaping how learning and opportunity are experienced. In this way, Sri Lanka’s progress becomes part of a wider movement, where tradition and innovation work together to create communities that are more inclusive, resilient, and future-ready.