Up Country Tamils: Charting a New Future in Sri Lanka trade unions, temple and other community-based committees, are still restricted based on cultural perceptions of gender roles. Due to changes in profession, education, exposure and migration, younger women are slowly taking up these roles. Institutional trustworthiness and its influence in service delivery According to the Trust Survey carried out in 2015/16 by the NORHED Project on Policy and Governance Studies in South Asia, Sri Lankans have a low level of trust (66 per cent) in public institutions when compared to Nepal (70 per cent) and Bangladesh (73 per cent). Furthermore, Sri Lankans have only 42 per cent trust in public officials as compared to Nepal (45 per cent) and Bangladesh (72 per cent). The report indicates that Sri Lankans have measured institutional trust based on various factors such as impartiality and fairness in implementing policies, programmes, exercising power, adhering to equality before law principles, effectiveness, efficiency, service satisfaction, benevolence, helpfulness, accessibility, transparency, accountability, and equal treatment, etc. Sri Lanka’s public institutions are poorly performing in all these indicators due to various factors which substantially affect citizens’ trust in public institutions. In all three districts, a significant number of participants expressed a feeling of distrust and betrayal by the public institutions, as seen in Table 2, below. This became evident where only 42 per cent of participants were in favour of public institutions and tend to have trust in them. In their opinion, government institutions should not only be guardians of their rights but are also there to fight poverty. Some 58 per 44