ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a community-based intervention for internally displaced widows living in refugee camps in Sri Lanka as a result of the 19-year-long civil war. The Women’s Empowerment Programme was one of a series of interconnected programs run by the Family Rehabilitation Centre (FRC), a Sri Lankan nongovernmental organization committed to promoting ethnic harmony and community development, and to assisting victims of war by providing medical and psychological care and increasing socioeconomic knowledge. The FRC advocates a holistic, psychosocial model and philosophy and views mental health as embedded in a broad matrix of well-being and functioning. This matrix of interrelated factors encompasses psychological, social, and community functioning, cultural or spiritual belief and support systems, as well as economic and sociopolitical factors.
