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Unawatuna is a prime tourist destination on the South Coast of Sri Lanka. Made famous by author Arthur C. Clarke in the 1970’s, it has often been referred to as one of the ‘worlds best beaches’ due to the traditional fishing, environmental beauty and village life in the surrounding area.

Picturesque Golden Beach, Unawatuna.

Locals reminisce when tourism first began as a home-based enterprise. International visitors were treated more like family than paying guests, staying in village homes and participating in daily life. They were able to immerse themselves in the rich culture and customs of a Sri Lankan fisherman’s village and enjoy a “traditional” life-style.

However, due to many reasons including, but not limited to, environmental pollution and a lack of coordination and planning, the quality of tourism provided within Unawatuna has diminished over the past thirty years.

Having realised the gravity of the situation, the community’s local tourist entrepreneurs got together and held discussion with the Sri Lankan Tourist Board and Sewalanka Foundation, and arrived at a commitment to develop and implement the Golden Beach Unawatuna Community Development Project to restore home-based tourism to the richness of its earlier days.

The Unawatuna Golden Beach project will be driven by the community and supported through Sewalanka Foundation. A large component of the funding is yet to be secured for this project but Sewalanka is working in partnership with the Tourist Board to secure project-by-project funding from corporate sponsors.

Project Aims

a.	Restore the rich cultural and traditional heritage of Unawatuna and to ensure that it is a quality tourism destination.
b.	Encourage and increase the inflow of foreign tourists, by providing exceptional catering, free from harassment and pollution, with appropriate infrastructure and sanitation facilities.
c.	Utilize local resources and skills to enhance the tourism industry’s income and in turn benefit the community.
d.	Preserve and promote the rich religious and cultural values of the area.

In the short-term Sewalanka Foundation has established a community centre and sub office, in which to coordinate the project. The community centre will also double as a training centre for the awareness program and vocational training program. Sewalanka has also begun providing institutional capacity strengthening to local community based organisations.

Vendors and Guides’ Program

Participants in a recent dressmaking workshop.

In August a training program for guides, shop vendors and vendors working on the beach began. The program includes dressmaking skills, as well as art classes and print-making techniques. The first course, in basic dressmaking, ran for three months each Sunday afternoon for three hours. Initially the class was attended by 19 clothing vendors but it popularity soon grew to over 25 women regularly attending. After four classes, some of the participants were already implementing the techniques learnt.

Currently clothes vendors in Unawatuna buy their clothes from outside the village, thus reducing their potential profit margin. Hence over time the program aims to enable Unawatuna clothes vendors to make their own clothes increasing their profit margin. The new training centre will act as the venue for training classes.

The class has now formed a community based organisation and is in the process of finalising their constitution and registering their organisation. A credit and savings program is planned.

Phase two and three

The second and third phase of the project planned to commence in 2004 will address basic infrastructure issues, like inadequate sewerage and solid waste removal. The project brief will also examine working with existing projects in the South to supply provision of pure drinking water into homes and hotels and repair interior roads. The project aims to look at establishing a tourist and environment centre and the creation of a web site to inform and attract tourists from all over the world. A series of awareness campaigns are also planned, targeting school children and other members of the Unawatuna community on the importance of environment and culture protection for the success of sustainable tourism in Unawatuna.