History in the making: Children Prioritizing Democracy

Children’s Shadow Predeshya Sabhas is an initiative of TSA named “Sprouts of Democracy,” which
witnessed the first ever Children’s Shadow Pradeshiya Sabhas(CSPS) in Sri Lanka.

The Social Architects and the communities across 57 villages in 10 districts (Ampara, Anuradhapura,
Batticaloa, Rathnapura, Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Matara, Mullaithevu, Nuwara Eliya and Polonnaruwa)
responded to the children’s questions and curiosity about democracy, governance and the recent
developments in the country. They saw the need to learn and popularize the present Sri Lankan
Local Governance Structure through children’s eyes to the preteens and teens in 10 districts by
creating a Lanka-wide children’s community called “Sprouts of Democracy (SoD)” to claim
governance at the local level.

The Social Architects supported them in creating the CSPS Act to create the SoD -CSPS, parallel to
the Sri Lankan Local Government Act with the mixed proportional electoral system. Subsequently,
the children aged 11-15 formed three parties.
a) Children for Earth,
b) Children for Sustainable Development
c) Children for Fair Resource Allocation.

The SoD community created party manifestos, logos and flags for the above three parties.
The goal was to introduce participatory governance to the children themselves so that they would
learn, participate, practice and enjoy democracy at a young age.

The Election of the CSPS was announced in December 2022 and called for nominations. Each party
nominated 8 members for each of the 19 CSPS and received 24 nominations for 5 posts.
They were given identity cards as proof of their association (citizenship) with SoD which they used
to establish their eligibility to vote.

Out of 456 candidates(19×24), the children elected five members from each CSPS(in total 95),
consisting of three parties: Children for Earth, Children for Sustainable Development and Children for
Fair Resource Allocation. The CSPS Act also ensured female representation in the democratic
process.

For the first time in the history of Sri Lanka, the newly elected members of Children’s Shadow
Pradeshiya Sabhas (CSPS) were sworn in on Monday, March 6, 2023, in Colombo. The elected
members were given an orientation on citizenship, participatory governance, Sri Lankan electoral
system before taking the oath.