By a spread of photographs across the table, Samantha Wijekoon and Dorothy Douglas show me how they helped in the rehabilitation process of over 100 child soldiers- recruited by Tamil Tigers. Aged 15 to 20, the smiling girls in the photographs are now civilians. They are free to sing, dance and act, as children should; no longer afraid for their lives.
Samantha is the Western Commissioner of the Girls Guide Association of Sri Lanka (GGASL) was requested by Bernadine Anderson to help in the rehabilitation of 300 and over child soldiers who were brought to the Ratamalan rehabilitation camp which was located within Hindu College.
“Some were forced to join [the Tiger army]; so those particular girls and boys were brought [to the Ratamalana Camp]. This was under the Bureau of Rehabilitation of which Brigadier Sudantha Ranasinghe was in charge. The Ratmalan camp was under the charge of Brigadier L. C Perera”, shares Samantha.
“While the school was functioning, they had allocated some of the areas of the school and turned them into dormitories. This was started in May 2009, we started in October. Since it is located in the Western Province, I thought it was my duty to look after them. This is one part of our Girl Guides project. We started out teaching them English,” she says introducing Dorothy Douglas, the Division Commissioner of Wattala of the GGASL. Dorothy came aboard the project as she and Samantha are good friends, and Samantha felt Dorothy’s fluency in Tamil would spearhead their efforts.
“When we started speaking to them in Tamil they opened up”, says Dorothy, adding “before they were really scared to speak to anyone”.
After a year of rehabilitation at the Ratmalana camp, these children were able to overcome the trauma. The efforts at the camp were assisted by the GGASL by Samantha and Dorothy as, apart from teaching the children English and other subjects, they introduced Girl Guiding.
“They were happy to learn English”, Samatha says. “Some were able to understand and speak in Sinhala. And some were able to understand English as they had gone to school,” she adds that the Principal of Hindu College, integrated the former child soldiers with the students in the school, with the help of donors and sponsors.
Starting out with Girl Guide songs, Samantha and Dorothy introduced the girls to Guiding and requested for the boys to receiving training in scouting. 38 of the girls joined the GGASL .
Having thought them songs and games, Samantha expresses “they are children; and children need these activities. Some of them had lost their childhood but even at this age they need to experience that”. The Girl Guides and Girl Scout mission world wide is to empower women and encourage them to become useful citizens of the world. “We taught them about the girl guide promise and law. It was something different for them”, recalls Samantha. Dorothy adds, “they took it to heart. The promise is to do your best to your religion and your country. That’s our promise, first religion and then your country. And they felt it”.
In May 2010, the children returned to the north-east. The 38 Girl Guides joined the Jaffna and Vauvniya Girl Guides. The skills that they learnt as Guides will come in handy says Dorothy, expressing how most of these children returned to homes that were empty and some to tents in camps.
Picking up a photography in which smartly dressed girls are being received by the GGASL in an official ceremony, Samantha affectionately and proudly asks, “See how energetic they are? Can you say that they were once combatants”? |
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