In recent years, Sri Lanka is facing a trend of increased frequency and scale of natural disasters due to floods and landslides. Globally, National military forces are often well placed and sometimes specifically mandated by their governments to act as first responders, which is the state of affairs in Sri Lanka as well.

To this end, as a capacity building effort, a three-day residential training workshop  on the Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) for Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) in Emergencies took place from the 19^th - 21^st February 2018 at the Chinthana Training Center, Nainamadama at which 30 military personnel of the Sri Lanka Army were participants.

The Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) is a set of priority lifesaving interventions required to respond to reproductive health needs at the onset of every humanitarian crisis.

The facilitators were Dr. Harischandra Yakandawala, SPRINT Project Head/Director-Medical of FPA Sri Lanka and Dr. Dinesh Fernando, Senior Lecturer of Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya.

Mr. Rangika Wickramage Assistant Director-Public Affairs, Policy & Advocacy, FPA Sri Lanka/SPRINT Project Coordinator firstly gave a brief introduction on the Disaster Management Overview of the Country after which sessions addressed the following topics.

• Need of SRHR in Emergencies
• Introduction of MISP Objectives
• Maternal and Newborn Health in Crisis and Post-crisis
• Family Planning in Crises
• Preventing HIV/STI in Crises
• Introduction to SGBV & IASC Guidelines on GBV Prevention in Humanitarian Settings and Medical Services for Rape Survivors

We had a positive feedback from the participants. Further, it was declared that this type of training was essential to the Sri Lanka Army, with special focus on Sexual Gender Based Violence. They proposed that we conduct similar programmes in the future.