Underprivileged youth in Anuradhapura and Vavuniya see light at the end of the tunnel with German assistance
Amaladas Anusha speaks to BT
It was the Sunday before last and on that day, parts of the North Central Province were under water due to continuous rain and caused some roads impassable. Yet, rain and the floods did not deter a team of media personnel from Colombo to visit a remote village – Halmeellawewa, Mihintale to meet some peasants who are in abject poverty involved in partial farming.It was the first lap of a hectic three day ‘Media Tour’ to Anuradhapura and Vavuniya organised by the German Bilateral Development Cooperation, (GTZ) and the German Embassy in Sri Lanka, taking a group of media people from Colombo.
The first visit was to Halmeellawewa where the causeway of the wewa was over spilling and the vehicle carrying the team was unable to pass the causeway. The team folded their trousers; shoes in their hands and waded through the causeway and reached the village to familiarise a dairy farming project where cows have been distributed among 25 poor families.Business Times visited the house of Nadeeka Sandamali and her husband Samith Nanda. They have one child Mr Nanda said that he does not have a permanent job and they used to cultivate some vegetables, but the inclement weather destroyed the crop .Their future lies in dairy farming.
The tour party wading through the water and drenching in the mud managed to visit a number of these families and got familiarised of on the dairy farming.Dharini Daluwatte, Adviser, Trade, Development Cooperation and Political Affairs, German Embassy in Colombo accompanied the media team and on the second day morning, before leaving to Vavuniya, briefed the media team about the visits to the micro project carried out by the German Embassy. There would be six to seven such annual projects First visit was to a project to start dairy farming in Iluppukanniya and Thiriyankulama (Halmeellawewa) .The grant given to Rajarata Janasahana Foundation is Rs 1.5 million.
The second visit was to Veppankulam, Vavuniya – Project ‘Motivation Sri Lanka’ with a grant of Rs 2 million to provide wheel chairs for 50 persons with spinal cord injuries.The third was a project to provide drinking water to 500 people in the villages of Neeliyamottai, Vadakadu, Kulankulam and Pramanalakulam in Chettikulam, Vavuniya where Rs 2 million was awarded to the Voluntary Organization for Vulnerable Community Development.The project – Vocational Training in the North and East of Sri Lanka (VTN) , Ms.Daluwatte said was started in 2012 and will continue till 2018, a EUR 8 million EUR project co-financed by Swiss State Secretary for Migration .
Eleven satellite vocational training centres in the five northern districts of Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mulaitivu, Vavunia and Mannar as well as Trincomalee have been selected by GIZ to provide trained technicians in various fields under the above project. Another visit was to the Education for Social Cohesion (ESC) to be ended at the end of 2016 at a cost of EUR11.75 million , Ms Daluwatte revealed. The project was developed in 2008 under the National Policy on education for Social Cohesion and Peace supported by GIZ to intervene in peace and value education, second national language education, psycho-social care and disaster safety education.
She pointed out that the project collaborates with all National Colleges of Education and Teacher Training Centres in pre and in- service teacher training in five of nine provinces covering mostly post-conflict and poverty areas involving in 200 pilot shools with more than 100,000 students and 4,900 teachers to promote social cohesion. Under German Cooperation, GIZ (Deutche Gesellschaf fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH) provides various assistance to Sri Lanka specially to promote SMEs. Don Bosco Vocational Training Centre, (DBVTC)), in Vavuniya, Ms. Daluwatte said is a part of their assistance through GIZ to run a programme to train orphaned girls to become computer and communication technicians
The team stayed overnight in Anuradhapura and on the second day, reached the above project at DBVTCO in Ramaikulam, Vavuniya and Rev Bro Gabriel Garniga, Economist/Project Director was at hand to provide all the necessary information.A large number of girls who have lost both their parents during the war, like all others in the North was moving from one Internally Displaced Camp to another under tragic and traumatic conditions. But the 21 girls now follow the IT course and a number of other girls are fortunate to be sheltered and led to various vocations since the end of the war in 2009, at DBVTC.These young girls are under the care of Don Bosco Sisters, led by their Superior, Rev Sister Petilda Selvi and this IT programme is monitored by Ms Briyasta Damayanti, Junior Programme Officer, GIZ.
Sister Sebastian told the Business Times that they have started this programme last year and already 20 girls have been trained. A six month course leads to NVQ Level 4 and they are now on job training.Sister Superior said that when these girls first came to the Centre, they were completely disturbed, disarrayed, traumatised and of a despaired mind without any future. She said that at first they found difficulty in handling them with that traumatised situation, but now their future is ensured with a respectable job they are moving about as happy as larks.
She raised her hands and uttered, “Thank you God for the opportunity for these helpless girls” and said that Germany has come like the God in disguise.Among the lot, two girls volunteered to speak to Business Times – S Pradeepa (18) and Amaladas Anushia (20) who have lost their parents during the war. When they reminisced their past and of their lost parents, their eyes were welling with tears, but when they spoke of the IT course and the bright future ahead, their faces gleamed with smiles.
They profusely thanked the Don Bosco Salesian Sisters and Germany.
Sister Sebastian said that until these girls are settled down(married), even after they are employed they will be sheltered here. There are 67 orphaned girls and one has entered the University. Out of the lot 24 are employed. “Some of the girls are going to school”, she said.
She said that 16 girls are already married. She said that they have to spend around Rs 400,000 per month and earlier there were several organisations to assist them. But now, she said most of them have dried off. After lunch in Vavuniya, the media team proceeded to Pampaimadu, 3 km off Vavuniya to meet the project Motivation Sri Lanka – ‘Vakarai’ Rehabilitation Unit where rehabilitation is provided for spinal cord injured persons.
IT Training at session at BDVTC Vavuniya
Towards the afternoon the group proceeded to the faraway, remote villages of Neeliyamottai, Vadakada, Piramanalankulam and Kulankulam where seven large wells have been built for drinking water.After this visit, the media group returned to Anuradhapura and the following morning they again proceeded to Vavuniya and beyond to the Zonal Education Office at Puliyankulam to experience a live programme of teacher training on ‘Education for Social Cohesion’. The teachers are trained on advanced facilitation skills training to learn to do presentations on ‘Pecha Kucha’ Style. M Radhakrishnan, Additional Provincial Director of Education (Research and Planning) and Psycho-Social Intervention, Northern Province was at hand at this live teacher training programme. The presenters were Ms Sivaprashanthi Thambaiah, Technical Officer, Problem Management Peer Supervision and R A Jayapriya, Trainer, Teacher Counsellor. K Marsha, GIZ Consultant, specially arrived from Colombo for the event that morning.After this event, the media group journeyed back to Colombo.