Spreading the culture of reconciliation

by Dushyantha MADUGALLE

“Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.”- Thich Nhat Hanh

“If there is to be reconciliation, first there must be truth.” Timothy B. Tyson, Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story

The culture of reconciliation is a hard-fought battle like many other fierce battles which were won by the army heralding in an era of peace and reconciliation. Forging a culture of reconciliation while the conflict was in its full-swing, was, perhaps more fictional and a reality. It was in the height of the conflict in the 1980s that the ambitious and courageous group of Sinhala women set up an organisation with the intention of helping out women caught up in the conflict in the Northern and Eastern provinces.

The ‘Sinhala Women’s Foundation for the Welfare and Development which earlier known as SKS (Sinhala Kanthabhivurdi Sangvidanaya established in 1985) or Sinhala Women’s Welfare Organisation , is spearheading a campaign to spread the culture of reconciliation through its activities aimed at educating youth, imparting life-skills, particularly, for women and empowering youth and women to build communities and Rehabilitation and Reconciliation. The organisation carries the goodwill of Sinhala sisters from the South to the women affected in the conflict in the North and the East.

In 1985, on the request of ten women (who are all graduates), Indrani Iriyagolle took the initiative to set up the organisation. Initially they organised regular trips to the North; Vavuniya, Batticaloa and Amparai which were the safe towns to travel to, at the time. The primary objective of the organisation was to look after or provide for the victims of all ethnicities. At the time, there were separate welfare camps for Sinhalese, Muslims and Tamils. The group made visits to all welfare camps and distributed welfare goods, dry rations, milk foods and clothes. The organisation received more and more requests to help those affected from diverse areas.

Relief for the volunteer corps

A request was made to provide some solace, counselling and rehabilitation for the volunteer corps of the army. At the time, there were around 35,000 volunteer corps and it was mainly made up of rural youth and they were not equipped to the degree as the regular army.

Considering the ground situation, the organisation focused on improving physical and mental status of the soldiers in the Volunteer Crops of the Sri Lankan Army. The organisation provided the volunteer corps with medicines such as skin creams, vitamins and clothes that the soldiers could wear when they were off duty. A vital role that the organisation played apart from supplying reliefs to the soldiers was to act as spokeswomen on their behalf making representations to the Ministry of Defence, the Army and the Volunteer Corps. The organisation was patronised by the Army, looking after the group and providing them with food, lodging and security.

“Baring the two army commanders, we have worked with all the army commanders and are very proud to say that Army commanders such as Denzil Kobbekaduwa appreciated our work and would often join us. Sometimes we stand together just before the artillery boys get into their lorries and move out to the battlefront.

At such moments, they would sing patriotic songs and we would also sing patriotic songs to make them feel that we are with them. Those were happy moments for all of us. Having recognised our positive role, I have been invited to address the volunteer corps and the army in Batticaloa, Ampara and Vavuniya. They expected me to speak about the country, heroism, leadership, the war and how to face the dangers. ”, Indrani Iriyagolle recalled the defining moments of the organisation.

The task was two-pronged; the group visited welfare camps as well as villagers. As the organisation provided relief and goods that villagers wanted, the group was welcomed by the villagers. Apart from providing dry rations and medicines, the organisation gave much-needed counselling for mothers who lost their children and family members and pregnant women. The group of women professionals such as doctors and counsellors would visit the villagers in a big van and attend to the needs of the villagers.

Rehabilitation

When terrorism was eradicated, the focus of the organisation shifted from providing relief to rebuilding lives with imparting life-skills, particularly, for women to generate employment and rebuilding communities. The organisation launched a couple of rehabilitation projects and one of such project was the training of women in carpentry and masonry as there were demands to repair and re-build houses.

The army helped the project by providing lecturers from the Engineering Unit to teach the women brick-building, mixing, carpentry and masonry. It was carried out as the on-the-job training program.

Seven houses were built in areas such as Kalukundam Maduwa and Paymaduwa. The women who constructed the houses were so self-reliant that they only sought help from the men to put the main beam of the house.

The foundation, then, embarked on income generating projects for affected persons. With the assistance from the army, training programs were conducted in school and crown lands were obtained with the sanction of the Provincial Secretaries for Chana cultivations.

Crops such as peanuts, black gram, green gram and gingerly were cultivated. In addition, poultry farming and fruit growing were also introduced to generate income. The foundation provided bicycles for the women to sell the eggs and farm products to the army kitchens.

As a result of the projects, there affected were able to commence their lives. The Army and AGA’ offices contributed to the success of the project.

As the organisation further explored the possibilities of improving the condition of the army and after President Premadasa recognised its services, President Premadasa called upon the organisation to directly link with the Ministry of Defense by setting up the NGO Coordinating Committee for the North and East.

The NGO Coordinating Committee which met every Friday at the JOC Quarters (Joint Operation Command) had helped the organisation to carry out its activities in a much organised manner in addressing the needs of the soldiers under the patronage of the Army. The NGO Coordinating Committee was made up of Army Commander, Navy Commander and Air Force Commander and other civil representatives.

Indrani Iriyagolle recalled the stroke of luck on that fateful day when the JOC was bombed and none of the members of the organisation had gone there on different reasons on that that day. The NGO Coordinating Committee helped to acquire information from the soldiers’ needs and the soldiers’ needs and requirements were conveyed to the President. Their immediate needs such as skin oilments and socks were provided both by the state and the individuals.

The organisation visited each and every army cantonment listing out the requirements of the soldiers. For instance, the organisation provided a mobile generator for the army camp in Tammmannakulama. The list was later discussed at the committee meetings and soldiers’ needs were duly met. However, the special committee was dissolved. The organisation prided in drawing up a questionnaire of nearly eight pages for the first time to find out the needs of the soldiers who were either in the jungle or in camps. The questions about their needs were divided into vital areas such as health, religion and counselling, personal needs and their fears. One of the first priorities of the soldiers was the need to observe their religions; Buddhist soldiers wanted to listen to Buddhist sermons while Christian soldiers wanted to get the blessings of a priest.

Letters of love for soldiers

The foot-soldiers often from rural areas had their education at Maha Vidyalayas and other schools. Often they suffered from loneliness, home-sickness and the need for communication was expressed in responding to questionnaires given to them.

“They would often say that they had beautiful dreams at night and also related horror stories in the morning. We felt that something to be done to fill the emotional life of the soldiers.

So, we organised social relation project whereby we invited some of the girls’ schools in Colombo to write letters, compose poems to soldiers, comforting them or express different sentiments relating to war life.

On our request, principals of several schools in Colombo agreed to regularly supply us with letters expressing patriotic sentiments, sisterhood and brotherhood and love, all mixed in one in those letters”, recalled Indrani Iriyagolle how the organisation helped to give some sort of emotional comfort for the war-weary soldiers. The organisation also supplied the army camps with wedding suits tailored in Colombo so that soldiers who would go home on leave to wed their loved ones could use these wedding suits. About 8-12 suits were tailored and distributed two suits per camp. The soldiers also expressed their homesickness and inability to see their parents.

Tsunami and reconciliation

At the beginning the soldiers were given two week of leave, once in a six months and often they had to spend two or three days on the road before reaching their homes.

On request, Tata Company of India provided first three large long green painted buses which were used to provide transport for soldiers. In addition to providing transports for the soldiers, the organisation arranged evenings of music with visiting artistes from Colombo. Especially during the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, the organisation held New Year celebrations with the soldiers.

On request, the ‘Sinhala Women’s Foundation launched its rehabilitation activities in Trincomalee and Matara districts in the aftermath of the tsunami.

As there was a special request that the Trincomalee was neglected, the foundation launched its program of rehabilitation in Trincomalee with the assistance of the Army and government officials.

Elders and the youth were badly affected in Trincomalee. Youth were first given counselling and then training in small enterprise development to make them economically sustainable.

The members of the organisation, who had overseas training, drew up modules to teach the youth in a simple manner on how to start an enterprise and how to do their surveys to find out special needs and based on the survey, the market for their ventures.

About 300 women in separate batches were given training in enterprise development within six months.

Most of the women showed an interest in training themselves in landscaping as a large number of hotels were damaged in the area and they made a considerable sum of money while others were trained in fish marketing, dried-fish selling. The Foundation set up a branch in Trincomalee and women are still profitably engaged in SMEs.

The foundation also carried out its rehabilitation activities in Matara and Hikkaduwa. A group of unknown women in Hikkaduwa wrote to the Foundation, informing them that there were 11 women with their children were to commit suicide by throwing their children into the river.

When the members of the foundation visited Hikkaduwa, they found about 200 women waiting for them including the 11 women with their children.

Some of the women were badly led down by the reputed NGO’s by promising them to pay for their projects and asking them (women) to obtain money on loan from banks and that the NGOs would pay back the loans. However, the foundation trained them in SMEs and put them onto the path of economic prosperity. The Sinhala Women’s Foundation has a branch in Hikkaduwa and the members are profitably engaged in SMEs.

Rehabilitation and reconciliation

One of the important areas that the foundation engaged in the development context was the activities of rehabilitation and reconciliation. The activities commenced in Vavuniya. On request by the Army, the Foundation commenced its rehabilitation and reconciliation activities with the focus on women and school youth in the area.

The Foundation trained about 1000 youth (O/L to A/L students, young boys and girls of Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims) on what is called Youth Empowerment Training and setting goals for their future.

The program was assisted by the Army and Education Office. The focus of the Empowerment Training was to train youth in community leadership and the message of reconciliation was well-integrated into the leadership training. The aim was that students should help their communities and love their communities and then, they will love their country.

“Feedback from the youth was positive and they informed us that they helped the elders, cleaned the roads, clean the well and played a big role in the rehabilitation and rebuilding process. We paid a lot of attention to communication particularly in the development context as people are insensitive.

Communication in verbal and body language, facing interviews, how to write a CV and how to find a job were taught and along with that SME management training was given to women. Indrani Iriyagolle monitors the progress of the projects.

A mixed batch of Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim women were given training in SME management. Apart from the economic progress that the women made, association was made between Tamil and Sinhala women; once a month Sinhala women visit Tamil village and Tamil women visit a Sinhala village.