Sri Lanka: part 2

AHIMSA: Barefoot University for Peace and Development.

“AHIMSA exists to promote and develop moral, educational, spiritual and mental development and psychological well being among diverse ethnic groups and society at large through conflict transformation.”
-AHIMSA’s website

I had a task to complete in Sri Lanka. Within two months, I would have to settle down in a total unfamiliar country, get used to my new internship, learn as much as I can about Sri Lanka in terms of the conflict. My internship site was at AHIMSA, a Sri Lankan non profit organization (NGO). But it seemed only like yesterday that I was making my thrilling daily journey to work. I can still feel myself being squeezed on an old rusty bus that carried triple its capacity. It makes no difference how you are dressed or how much money you have once you are on a Sri Lankan bus. Around me were housewives, businessmen, workers or even beggars all trying to get hold of the handle as the bus swirled around each corner. I got off this bus, walked through several busy streets with no sidewalks and arrived at AHIMSA sweating and face covered with dust every day.

The first day at the AHIMSA, I was given a welcome pack with all the important information and was welcomed with ice cream during lunchtime. Monica, one of the directors, gave me a mini “orienation” of the job by giving me a brief history of AHIMSA and its current situation. AHIMSA was established as a conflict resolution NGO by Kassapa Diyabedanage, Monica Alfred and Indika Pushkumara in 1999 after the three had worked together in another organization. Kassapa and Indika are both male Sinhalese Budhists and Monica is a Tamil Catholic. Indika is mostly in charge of accounts while Monica and Kassapa runs programs. The term “Ahimsa” is a religious principle of commitment to non-violent actions. AHIMSA has done many peace projects, dialogue groups, training workshops and activities for adults and children throughout the country. It is also in the process of building a resource center for conflict resolution books and videos. The directors’ long-term plan is to develop AHIMSA into a Barefoot University for Peace and Development to motivate and provide individuals and communities with the skills to live in peace.

The AHIMSA office is located in Nugegoda, a suburb of Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. It is a nice two-story house hidden behind a big metal gate in a small alley just off a busy junction and a huge bustling market. The house built originally as a family home was rented and converted into an office building. The office is just like a family, as there are only three directors, eight staffs and couple of foreign volunteers and interns. Besides the two directors Kassapa and Indika and the housekeeper Wasantha who are males, the rest of eight staff and volunteers and Monica are women. All except Indika are single and unmarried in their twenties or thirties. We all walked barefoot in the building; eat lunch together using our fingers (that’s the only correct way to eat rice and curry, in case you are wondering) and wait patiently to use the few computers available.

The six main projects AHIMSA is working on are: A level school project, Children’s club and Microcredit for mothers in Merihana, USAID Viewer Circle project, Tsunami Psycho-social workshops, a Resource Center and a newly launched Peer Mediation project for children. I was lucky to get to know a bit of each of the projects except for the A level school project. The school project was a long term initiative managed by Sureka to integrate peace studies into the Advanced level curriculum (also called A levels, is an examination students have to pass in order to get into universities) by having students start projects about peace for their A level projects. The Resource Center is Himali’s effort to collect and organize resources on conflict resolution to make it into a library accessible to everyone. The USAID Viewer Circle is Kassapa’s idea to bring a movie about the war to show to people in villages to change their thinking. The tsunami psycho-social program is a series of workshops over a course of two years to help tsunami victims overcome their trauma. Monica designed and implemented these workshops by herself. I shared a flat for one month with my fifty seven year old flatmate Martha. Martha was asked to come to Sri Lanka for a few months to design the Peer mediation program and give staff training to implement it.

Thanks to AHIMSA’s good ongoing relationship with foreign universities and organizations, AHIMSA always had a good flow of incoming volunteers and interns. Unfortunately, most volunteers and interns lack the skills or language required for the job so there has always been a problem with getting the most out of each person’s ability. AHIMSA even reached a point where they had to have a staff meeting on “Why we should have volunteers and interns”. Luckily for me, after considering the pros and cons, AHIMSA decided that having interns and volunteers is still worth the trouble. Therefore, as part of an agreement between the Ethics Center at Brandeis and AHIMSA, I was sent there to work as a Coexistence Intern. Having no real experience of conflict resolution and only basic information of the conflict from a course I took at Brandeis prior to the internship, I could be considered totally unprepared. I didn’t know what was expected of me and had no plans of what I would do. For me, everything was new and I viewed it as a learning experience. Indeed, I learned a lot. Within my two months with AHIMSA, I learned what it is like to operate on a grass root level as a local NGO, I traveled with them to their workshops, partied with them and tried my best to somewhat be a part of the family. Among the NGOs in Colombo, AHIMSA did a good job of establishing themselves and has a good reputation. They also did a good job of welcoming me.

Disclaimer: My blog is for entertainment purposes only, please do not take it seriously or personally. Thank you!

Sri Lanka: part 1

I went to Sri Lanka in the summer of 2005 to do an internship at a small local NGO for 2 months. After the trip, I wrote a really long essay on my trip. I have always wanted to edit it and share with friends but never had time to. I figured that if I were to share it with you guys, it would be now or never.

So here it is, enjoy!

Note: there are about 9 parts in total. Some are more interesting than others. You don't need to read every parts to understand. The first part is just an introduction of the conflict in Sri Lanka in case you don't know. The information is from 2005 so it might be out of date.

“Sri Lanka: manmade and natural disaster on a beautiful island”

The very first day I arrived in Sri Lanka for my internship, Kassapa, who would be my site supervisor for the summer warned me “The experience you have might be completely different to that of Lisa’s” when he picked me up from the airport in Colombo. Well, I chose Sri Lanka as the destination for my Ethics and Coexistence Fellowship purely from hearing Lisa described what a “wonderful” time she had there, assuming I would have the same wonderful experience. I was bewildered why Kassapa had to give me such early warnings and didn’t really understand what he meant until I started to experience my own version of Sri Lanka. My experience of Sri Lanka was indeed very different from that of Lisa’s. But it was still “wonderful”.

Welcome to Paradise

Welcome to Sri Lanka, the “resplendent island” in the Indian Ocean famous its beautiful beaches and six world heritage sites. Sri Lanka is such a small island that when describing it, people often have to mention “the tiny island next to India”. Little is known to the world that Sri Lanka is also home to a decades-long bloody civil war since 1983. Some consider the civil war as the Tamil’s struggle for equal rights, power and self-government but others think this is just a war against terrorism. The conflict has not ended, yet 65, 000 of people have died as a result and another 1, 116, 000 were displaced. To understand this war, let’s take a look at the history of Sri Lanka. The story started with the two main ethnic groups called Sinhalese and Tamils who have been living in Sri Lanka since the 6th century BC.

The Sinhalese from Northern India arrived in Sri Lanka in the 6th century BC and adopted Buddhism as their main religion. The Tamils originated from a South Indian dynasty that occupied the North of Sri Lanka and created a separate Tamil Kingdom. Their main religion was Hinduism. As is often the case for conflicts, the civil war in Sri Lanka has its root in the colonial times. The colonials introduced Christianity to Sri Lanka, giving birth to a group of Tamil Christians and Sinhalese Christians. Arab merchants who settled on the island formed a minority Muslim group. The island became colony of the Portuguese in the 16th century and the Dutch in the 17th century. It then became a British colony in the 18th century and was named Ceylon. The British united the 74% mostly Buddhist Sinhalese majority with the 18% mostly Hindu Tamil minority. However, to prevent Tamils and Sinhalese from coming together to overthrow the colonial regime, the British rulers had a smart strategy. They favored the Tamil minority, gave them better education opportunities and higher positions in the government. This created great anger among the majority Sinhalese people who felt that they were being treated unfairly.

Soon after independence in 1948, the majority Sinhalese saw their opportunity to claim the power and rights that had been taken away from them under British rule, so they imposed many laws against Tamils. One such law, known as “Sinhala only”, passed in 1956, made Sinhala the official language of Sri Lanka. Many nationalist movements also organized riots against Tamils at the same time. Following passage of this law, the Tamils felt oppressed by the Sinhalese community. In reaction to the unpleasant experience of being treated as second-class citizens all of a sudden, the Tamils fought back. Fighting broke out between the two groups frequently but officially broke out into a civil war in 1983 when the biggest anti-Tamil riots took place. Political unrest led to the formation of numerous political parties from both ethnic groups, many of which became militarized. Nowadays, Parties led by Sinhalese elites, such as the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the United Nation Party have often been in control of the Sri Lankan government. The extreme nationalist People’s Liberation Front (JVP) and other Buddhist priesthood parties also play an important role in Sri Lankan politics. The Tamil nationalists formed their own parties one of which is the Liberation Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE). This political and a military organization now unofficially controls part of the Northeast area. The LTTE has been listed as a terrorist group by the US and many countries due to its history of terrorism and violence.

Many peace talks and treaties have been signed between the government and the LTTE leading to some ceasefire agreements but the peace process still seems fragile with unexpected bombings and attacks from each group. The Northeast area of Sri Lanka is currently under a ceasefire contract negotiated by the Norwegian government. However, formal peace talks between the government and the LTTE were broken off in April 2003 and are yet to be resumed.The economy of Sri Lanka has suffered greatly from this bloody war. Sri Lanka saw a decrease of 40-50% in its GDP. Riots, demonstrations and assassinations are so common that after living here for a while, one becomes immune to those incidents and sadly, sometimes turns indifferent. On November 18th, 2005, Mahinda Rajapakse, former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka was elected the new President to replace President Kumaratunga after she ended her two terms in office. It is said that during the election, Mr Rajapakse has gained support from the JVP and the JHU (a right wing Buddhist monk party) by agreeing that he will abandon peace talks and the Joint Mechanism agreement to share aid with the LTTE. However, after taking office, the new President has expressed that it is his top priority to resolve the bloody civil war and review peace talks with the LTTE. If so, awaits him is the huge task of resolving the bloody civil war. The future of Sri Lanka is still to be determined.

Despite the prolonged war, many foreigners have been to Sri Lanka and fallen in love with the magnificent island. One of them was acclaimed photographer Paula Harris who described Sri Lanka as “fractured paradise.” I was about to be another innocent person to fall for its charm.

(to be continued...)

Disclaimer: My blog is for entertainment purposes only, please do not take it seriously or personally. Thank you!