Venesa Matram Symposium 2015:
A networking and skill sharing event for Sri Lankan community workers
The Venesa Matram Symposium is a networking, skill building and collaboration supporting event for arts, cultural and community workers in Sri Lanka.
The annual event aims to create a space for dialogue, exchange and experience sharing that can support more connected and effective community building by creative practitioners. The Symposium encourages practitioners to learn new skills, share their own practice and discuss needs and approaches related to the communities they work with.
Ferment Collaborate, an Australian-based community cultural development agency, produces the Symposium in collaboration with community agencies based in Sri Lanka.
Our focus in delivering the event is to connect practitioners from around the island and in the process break down geographic, cultural and religious boundaries that have been reinforced through over 30 years of conflict and over 500 years of colonisation. We aim to empower community workers by supporting them to share their stories and skills, personal, professional and cultural, toward developing more effective, collaborative and inclusive approaches to community building.
On 30 August at 6pm we held a fundraising event at Wandering Cooks in South Brisbane for a night celebrating Sri Lankan culture and supporting our fundraising for the 2015 Venesa Matram Symposium.
The night featured great tasting organic Sri Lankan food, performances by Sri Lankan artists, films and buy Sri Lankan health and craft items made through community programs by organisations we work with in Sri Lanka.
We delivered a fundraising campaign for the 2015 Symposium.
The film uses images from last years event to provide a clearer picture of what the Symposium is and supported our fundraising campaign.
Are you an arts, cultural or community worker in Sri Lanka?
The Venesa Matram Symposium is for Sri Lankans of all ages, genders, religious and cultural backgrounds, who engage, on a paid or volunteer basis, in work that involves arts, culture or community development, practice, management or advocacy work. If you’re unsure whether the Symposium is for you, please contact us.
traditional knowledge cultural development social inclusion engagement permaculture community building facilitation advocacy cultural expression sustainability multiculturalism integration community health experiential learning
Interested in attending the Symposium?
Information about upcoming Symposium’s will be displayed on this website. Sign up for our newsletter to receive information about when the next event will be or email us directly. We can send you information about the Symposium including history, objectives, the types of people who benefit from attending as well as forms for you to share information about yourself and your interest in attending.
Below are the Expression of Interest forms from 2015 which provide some information about how to participate in future Symposium events.
For Word documents, please note that Tamil font is KALAHAM.TTF and Sinhala font is DL-ANURADA.TTF
Check out our Facebook page for latest updates on the Symposium. We also have a Facebook Page just for Participants, which we’ll invite you to once your application has been accepted!
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Workshops from the Open Space program
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Participant notes
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Facilitators used creative ways of connecting with participants
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Reading over the Participant Agreement
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Trudy’s workshop
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Daniel’s workshop
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The main hall where each day began and ended
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Reading over the Participant Agreement
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Kirsty from the Centre for Peace Building and Reconciliation
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The photo and contacts board helped people exchange details and put names to faces
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People took turns at running fun icebreaker activities
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Lucy with cartoon drawings from Roy’s workshop
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The Young Producers Group took all photographs and supported event production and facilitators
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People discussed workshop topics in small groups
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Training prior to the Open Space workshops helped people with facilitation skills
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Setting up the Open Space program
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Pujika’s workshop on Women’s Empowerment
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So much discussion on a wide range of topics
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Workshops generally included 10 to 15 people
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Another icebreaker activity
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Community Cultural Development training gave people a framework for the Symposium and community work
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Each participant received a pack with information, lanyard, notebook and pens
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Discussions were lively and managed well by facilitators
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As part of the Cultural Program, we took a bus ride to important cultural places around Jaffna
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Everyone was treated to a local ‘koothu’ or street theatre performance in a local village
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Including local musicians
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The closing ceremony featured Jaffna traditional dancers
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Most of the 54 participants on the final day
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Celebrating a fun, inspiring and rewarding week together
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