Our clients and staff

• Project cycle management, monitoring & evaluation
• Project management and training development
• Institutional development / organisational strengthening
• Social development programs

Working Languages: English,Tamil and Sinhala

I was labeled as a 'people's person' as I spend more time on the process of learning than focusing on the end product. Standing in front of highly versatile and challenging participants for more than 15 years moulds a person into a matured seasoned trainer. My area of expertise at the beginning of my life at MDF was designing projects, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

Down the road, with international and national exposure, my territory has expanded to areas such as organisational assessments, management skills, conflict resolution as well as advocacy and lobbying. Since I am fluent in English, Tamil and Sinhala; I work as a multi task trainer and consultant.

After my graduation I began my career as a secondary school science teacher in the government sector. After 16 years of service, I joined a GTZ funded government educational programme as a teacher/ advisor. During my 6 years on this programme with the advisory and monitoring activities, I also designed projects and programmes.

I switched career from the government sector to the role of a fully fledged development worker. I worked for Care International for 5 years as a Management Trainer. After that I joined MDF South Asia in 2003 and became a member of the MDF family.

Since then I have been carrying out many trainings, consultancies and evaluations Island wide in Sri Lanka and internationally in countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Netherlands, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines and Vietnam. My clientele encompasses the government, corporate and development sectors.

Being appointed as an Island wide Justice of Peace (JP), I serve in areas of civil society and am able to make a fare contribution towards the good governance of the country. I too volunteered myself as a member of board of trustees for a charity based organisation that helps the children for right to Education.

Institutional Development and Organisational Strengthening.
Management in different cultural context.

Languages: English, Dutch

Sometimes participants drive their trainer mad by questioning underlying principles. It seems I was one of them during the first MDF course I attended in 1996.

Working for 15 years in a variety of development projects - often focusing on vocational training and business development - as advisor, manager and portfolio manager, made me to advocate that cultural peculiarities had to be taken profoundly into account into any development intervention. MDF appreciates authenticity and inquiring minds and invited me to work for them.

Hereafter I developed a professional understanding of the cross-cultural issues I raised, and the value and limits of a wide variety of tools and approaches towards the development of management of development organizations. I have an analytical mind, that is what people say. As a kid I experimented with the real word in all possible means (sports, music, arts, dismantling the family-clock), and when the present became kind of done with, I discovered the limitless space of times past and other cultures.

In 1977 I finished my studies in electronics, and after a brief period as a researcher with Philips I became manager of a village polytechnic in the slums of Nairobi, the beginning of a long career in development work. In 1993 I started a mango-farm in Sri Lanka, and in 2002 received a PhD after writing a thesis about the history of local public administration in the South of Holland since the Middle Ages till modern times.

For MDF I gave all main courses, specializing in Institutional development and Organizational Strengthening. Since September 2001 I worked for long periods as a capacity builder and country representative in post-conflict nations (Afghanistan and Sudan), thriving in this brave new world in which quality, speed and quick understanding of complex situations count.

Institutional development and organisational strengthening

Rochanga has over ten years of experience in organisational analysis and strategic planning.

He is an allround planner, who uses value based management tools, models and theories for analysis and a consultative participatory method (Workshop based training) to bring about change in organizations. He is working as a part-time consultant for MDF South Asia.

Analyzing, diagnosing, designing, planning and implementing of MDF training programs and workshops.

Chaminda has been with MDF South Asia since 2001 and has been involved in a large range of MDF assignments.

He is a co-faciliator in MDF Organizational workshop. He also organises exposure trips and exchange visits for MDF trainees from various countries, bringing training theory and informal experience together in the field.

I started my career in 2006 as a Receptionist in a construction firm and later was promoted as a trainee Secretary to the Managing Director, where my work was a multi-tasked one and I was able to learn computer literacy mainly AutoCAD.  After that I moved to a Freight forwarding firm where I worked as a Secretary to the Managing Director. Besides, I was supporting the company in carrying out data entry and analysis for one of the tsunami projects of WaterHealth Inc. USA.  While working there I followed a course in Secretarial Studies in Ladies College Department of Vocational Studies, Sri Lanka and was awarded the 1st place in that field. I followed a Certificate course in Human Resource Management at the Institute of Personnel Management Sri Lanka (Inc.). At present I’m in the process of enrolling myself for Bachelors Degree in Social Science at the Open University of Sri Lanka.

After working for more than 3 years as a Secretary in the private sector I joined the MDF SA team as a Secretary/Management Assistant in 2010 hoping to switch my career towards development and humanitarian sector and my vision is to become a consultant in the long run. On top of my current position in MDF SA I enjoy supporting the consultants and other staff in their tasks such as assisting evaluations in data entry and analysis. I strongly believe that it is a good opportunity for me to be a part of MDF family where I can develop myself to grow by help others to grow.

My job as training coordinator engages me on a journey with the participant right from the first email up until he/she leaves the island after the training. I organise the training venue, hotel accommodation, welcome packages, workbooks and other logistic related issues for the trainings. Good organisation and being systematic have been keys to success in this sphere of my job.

With MDF South Asia I have grown from Management Assistant to Training coordination to Marketing & Training Coordinator. As the marketing person, I design marketing material such as the brochure, year planner, leaflets, and promotional items to mention a few. Quality and accuracy are tools I heavily rely on to make my work efficient.

My career path has been a diversified one. Starting with organising desert safaris, tours, catamaran boat cruises in the travel trade to transportation of cargo by air, sea and land in the cargo industry to being promoted as secretary to the Managing Director. My last job in Dubai was with Promis Project Management Engineering Systems (www.promis-group.com), in its formative years. Little did I know that this job would pave the way to MDF South Asia. Working with people from different countries, cultural backgrounds and languages was the seasoning I needed to work in an international organisation such as MDF Training & Consultancy.

Getting to know people and making new friends is my favourite pass time. Writing is my passion and creativity is my soul mate. The other side of me is totally immersed in nature and adventure.

I believe that “keeping a relationship warm” is the key ingredient in bringing the client back to MDF. The client needs to feels that he is important, is heard and know that he is understood. To that end, I strive to make sure that every participant and client is given this “priority” status.

I am resigned to the conviction that MDF is the place where knowledge, skills and experience come together under one umbrella. It’s a pleasure working with MDF Training & Consultancy and in particular in my branch office at MDF South Asia, Sri Lanka.

I am friendly by nature and accommodative to new ideas and change. I am ready to take on new challenges and strongly believe in the approach of “let me try” instead of “sorry, we can’t do this because…”

Adult Learning Specialist, Coaching and Counseling (I am a licenced Master NLP Practioner)

Languages: English

At heart, I would describe myself as an adventurer. In my career, I have been a mechanical engineer, computer graphics specialist, jungle explorer, technical illustrator, entrepreneur, business owner/manager and for the last 10 years as an Adult Learning Specialist. With more than 15 years of broad international consultancy experience particularly in South East Asia, I started my career path in the private sector prior to shifting to the development arena after the 2005 tsunami, where I found my spiritual home. I like to push boundaries, challenge myself, norms and others to achieve the maximum in terms of personal and professional actualization; making lives, workplaces and the world a little better, a little more fun and more fulfilling for everyone in it. I have strong leadership skills and believe that delegation and empowerment are the tools which assure staff motivation and team development. I constantly strive to be a better listener. I particularly enjoy strategic challenges including managing and supporting change, and shifting mindsets and organisational paradigms.

As a consultant, I am passionate about aid intervention effectiveness and since joining MDF as a consultant have built the team capacity in projects as diverse as dog population management in north Thailand, women's rights in Bangladesh, livelihood development for refugees in Afghanistan, environment journalism in Nepal, community television in Indonesia, conflict and tsunami-affected refugees in Sri Lanka and anti-trafficking teams of WWF around the world.

I am an enthusiastic and charismatic trainer and facilitator and this helps me overcome language and cultural barriers and gain the engagement of participants at all levels. I am an instinctive and responsive trainer and like to work closely with the client and with the participants to ensure that the learning experience meets their needs, expectations and that fits to their realities.

I am creative and flexible with proven ability to manage others, strategize, implement and monitor business plans to achieve strategic goals.

I am competent in consulting/capacity building in the following areas:

• Adult learning methodologies
• Management training: Planning, Designing and Implementation
• Management consultancy (in particular Organisation Development and HRM)
• Project Cycle Management including Logical Framework formulation
• Project monitoring and evaluation systems
• facilitation of Strategic Planning
• Project Evaluation
• Design and Implementation of Performance and Competency Management Systems
• Job Definitions and Job Evaluations
• Communications Skills (interpersonal, presentation and public speaking)
• Competency-Based Training and Development
• Recruitment and Selection Management
• Coaching and Counseling (I am a Licensed Mast NLP Practitioner)