Law or policy reform enabling automatic acquisition of nationality Hill Tamil nationality campaign The successful reduction of statelessness among the Hill Tamils was due not only to the adoption of laws, such as the 2003 Act, but also to the readiness of the Sri Lankan Government to work with UNHCR, the CWC and Hill Tamil community organizers. Pursuant to its statelessness mandate, UNHCR approached the Sri Lankan Government while the legislative reform process was underway, offering technical and logistical assistance to provide citizenship documentation to Hill Tamils. Together, the CWC and UNHCR designed a nationality campaign, including a scheme to deploy volunteers to the plantation areas to collect applications for citizenship documentation. This plan was approved by the Sri Lankan Government and funded in large part by UNHCR. UNHCR and the CWC deployed fifty mobile clinics to tea plantation areas, distributing and collecting the relevant forms from Hill Tamils who wished to make either a “general declaration” or “special declaration” for the appropriate counter-signature or acknowledgement by the Government. The campaign started in late November 2003, with a nationwide media drive using the major Tamil-, Sinhala- and English-language newspapers as well as television and radio to explain the law and inform the public about the mobile clinics. UNHCR and the CWC also trained 500 volunteers who had signed up to assist with the mobile clinics. A one-day workshop was held to brief them on statelessness, the history of Sri Lankan nationality laws since 1948 and the eligibility criteria for citizenship under the 2003 Act. The volunteers were coached on how to answer the questions that would commonly arise and complete and register the relevant forms. Teams of at least six volunteers and a designated leader were established for each of the fifty mobile clinics. Each team leader had to be fluent in Sinhala and Tamil, as well as able to speak basic English, and each received special training. The ten-day nationality campaign began on 1 December 2003 with the opening of the fifty mobile clinics in tea-plantation areas. The campaign encountered some challenges in producing the large number of application forms needed and in ensuring that photocopying, stamping and registration systems were fully functional at all mobile clinics. Another problem was the refusal of some tea-plantation managers to allow their workers to leave their jobs to attend the mobile clinics. To reach as many of these workers as possible, campaign volunteers set up clinics on the outskirts of plantations and worked overtime, including on weekends. 12 U N H C R > G P P A C T I O N 1 : R E S O LV I N G E X I S T I N G M A J O R S I T U AT I O N S O F S TAT E L E S S N E S S