Author: Visakan Balakumar

Centre for Community Development, Week 3

I arrived fresh on Monday morning ready to take on the most exciting and interactive part of my project at Tamil Women Development Forum. This was the interviewing of some of the members of the TWDF, as well other key women’s rights activists with regards to the situation of Tamil-speaking women in the North and East and plantations of Sri Lanka. I arrived a little early on the first day of interviews, a little nervous and unsure what to expect. Thankfully, as was always the case when interacting with people attached to the Centre for Community Development (the overall charity of which TWDF is one initiative, among others, that they are responsible for) the interviewees were very warm and welcoming.

All interviewees were very friendly and enthusiastic and seemed genuinely happy that someone had taken note of their, as of yet, small-scale but profound initiative. What surprised me the most was the confidence and insightfulness of their thoughts and ideas that they articulated to me. This was despite having had their lives disrupted by a brutal war, as well as having to function within a deeply conservative and patriarchal Tamil society which, while prizing and encouraging education for peoples of all backgrounds, usually reserved roles in administration and leadership for males only.

The only exception to this in recent history was a Tamil rebel group which emphasised and enabled equal participation of women in their cause. While I do not wish to make a political statement, it was especially interesting to interview a lady who had taken her emancipation into her own hands and risen to an empowered position as a result of it. Unfortunately her new found freedom was temporary and came crashing down with the rebel group’s defeat in 2009.

Yet here was a lady that, despite seeing and undergoing the horrors of war, still aspired to greater things and to help other women in similar positions to her. Her biggest wish was to learn English, but she was struggling to balance being a mother, her financial situation and the time to pursue those aspirations. I have suggested that the TWDF might look into providing free English lessons to Tamil speakers as this seems to be a recurring issue among the more recent members of the forum.

It also highlighted the diversity of experiences within the forum. While some women were well settled, financially secure and had the opportunity of an education, others were more recent migrants, and in some cases refugees, and were single mothers without ever having access to a formal education. I understood then that I would have to recommend a way to build a common understanding and bond across the forum.

Centre for Community Development, Week 2

Much of my first week had been spent conducting a literature review on the material with which I planned to include in my report, though this continued intermittently a few days into the second week. As mentioned in the last blog post, I found it very interesting to see how long the Tamil Women Development Forum had been around. It was humbling to be analysing the work of many great and inspiring women’s activists and I often found myself engrossed while reading decade’s old literature that had been produced by them well past my leaving time – even when it was not directly relevant to my project!

It was during the second week, while in conversation with the leaders of the TWDF, that we had the idea of holding a fundraiser for a new project that the TWDF are planning to start in the very near future. Members had chosen a particularly badly affected small town and its surrounding rural areas in the war-affected Vanni region of northern Sri Lanka in which to carry out this project. The fabric of society here, as with much of the formerly war-torn areas, has completely broken down with people turning to alcohol and drugs in a bid to deal their psychological problems. This has resulted in increased levels of domestic abuse towards women and even the emergence of intra-communal sexual violence in the Tamil north and east, previously unheard of when this region was under rebel control.

Regardless of the sobering issues for which the TWDF are raising funds, there was always an emphasis on positivity and empowerment of the women of the area to solve their own problems, which really resonated with me. The women here are very resilient, having lived through untold suffering, and continue to provide not just for their families but the wider society at large. All they need is to be empowered with the skills that will give them livelihoods and the ability to solve their economic and social problems and then they will be more than capable of doing so.

This has prompted to make a long-term commitment to supporting this charity initiative beyond the duration of my project and well into 2016, when this fundraiser will take place. It will be exciting to be in charge of part of the creative content of this fundraiser as well as contacting potential sponsors for the event. To date we have chosen the venue, contacted acts and are in the process of procuring sponsors.

Centre for Community Development, Week 1

On Monday September 7th, I arrived at the Thulasi Centre in Kingston-upon-Thames home to the Centre for Community Development charity. Though I have been here before, this place never fails to amaze me. It is a small building nestled behind a take-away on the main road, and completely inconspicuous apart from an entrance set into a small side lane.

Yet when you walk inside, this place transforms. The receptionists, while looking at me a little quizzically (they don’t often see students here apart from for designated events), were very friendly and welcoming. When I mentioned the project coordinator’s name, they immediately directed me to the room in which we were to have our first meeting.

The Centre for Community Development charity shares this venue with the Tamil Information Centre and you can instantly notice their presence here. The small room contained two computers and was lined with bookshelves on all four sides, with stacks of books and folders overflowing onto the floor in a few places too! I was able to pick out the folders labelled Tamil Women Development Forum. This is the individual project within the Centre for Community Development that I will be working on for the next few weeks and part of my project is to collate all their documentation, including audio and visual records.

After reviewing the plan for my project in our first meeting, most of my first week was spent analysing the material in these folders. It was quite a humbling experience as I truly appreciated how vital this project was, how effective its work was and the duration of the project. Many of the reports I consulted were as much as ten years old!

One of the main aims of my project is to evaluate the successes and shortfalls of the organisation and to that end I will be conducting interviews with some of the members of the Tamil Women Development Forum next week. I left the Thulasi Centre on Friday evening with an appreciation of how important my project was and a renewed sense of determination!