Like the Beatles, Catherine Liyanage née Mole wants to receive her M.B.E from the Queen herself but unlike John Lennon she has every intention of keeping it. “It’s such an honour,” says Catherine, who will be welcomed this year into The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire as a Member. The order of chivalry established by George V in 1917 continues to make Knights and Dames out of those it considers deserving and Catherine has qualified for her work with disabled children in Sri Lanka. The M.B.E is an unexpected honour – and a fitting finale to her time in Sri Lanka.
Catherine first saw the island in 1995. “I left on my 18th birthday to come to Sri Lanka for a year,” she remembers. Her initial preference was to be sent to Vietnam but after being told by the organisers Project Trust that it was “too tough for girls,” she was given a few moments to select another country. A stranger suggested Sri Lanka (because it had both mountains and beaches) and Catherine never regretted it.
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“My first year in Sri Lanka was amazing,” she says, remembering working with the Prithipura Homes for the Disabled as being one of the most extraordinary times of her life. Though she would eventually get to work in Vietnam with VSO, she found herself drawn back to Sri Lanka to volunteer again and again. She chose to move to Sri Lanka in 2003. By then she knew she wanted to start the organisation that would become ECSAT (Equality-based Community Support And Training) in Galle. (She also wrote extensively for the magazine Travel Sri Lanka during this period, adopting her mother’s maiden name ‘Ramp’.)
Then the 2004 tsunami struck, and it proved a defining moment for her fledgling organisation. “After the tsunami, with so many people in need, it made us so much stronger in saying we have to help everybody at the same time, disabled people alongside non-disabled people,” she says, explaining that ever since ECSAT (www.ecsatlanka.org) has kept a strong focus on inclusion.
Today, the organisation works with around 300 young disabled people. Their outreach programmes take them into communities looking for disabled people who have been isolated and subsequently giving them a chance to interact with others and learn some skills at ECSAT’s centre. The organisation also helps find their protégés placement in local schools. The process is a challenging one – many young disabled students struggle to cope with the demands of the schooling system even as bullying and mockery from some peers make it difficult for them to adjust to the classroom settling. In addition, most teachers don’t have the resources or the time to deal with a class with children at different levels in it, says Catherine. Consequently, many drop out.
She believes the shock of encountering the other could be reduced on both sides by bringing disabled and non-disabled people together from early on. “If we try and change people’s opinions when they are 20 or 30 or 40, you have their whole background to deal with,” she says. Part of ECSAT’s stated purpose is to ‘demystify disability’ to help communities understand that medical intervention and institutionalisation are not the only effective options. “Sri Lanka has come a long way since I was first here,” says Catherine, “I think people know now that if you have a problem with your leg or arm, it doesn’t mean you have a problem with your brain.” Still the “attitudinal barriers” remain and are particularly hard to overcome, existing as they do not only in the minds of society at large but in the parents of disabled children themselves, many of whom struggle to find a place for their children.
This is why part of ECSAT’s work has been to support parents to unite and to encourage them to bring their shared concerns to schools as a group.
ECSAT also subscribes to the belief that programmes must routinely make room for disabled people on the inside, even though they might ostensibly be about poverty alleviation or skill development. “Seeing something happen is one of the most dramatic ways for a person to understand that this is what’s possible,” says Catherine, citing handicraft workshops in Galle where disabled and non-disabled worked together. The latter were surprised – until then they had assumed that the disabled couldn’t contribute. ‘We didn’t think they could do anything, we thought they were useless,’ they told Catherine. Citing the work of groups such DOJF (Disability Organization Joint Front), Catherine shares her belief that in the years to come more and more disabled people will become their own advocates.
Having seen ECSAT come into its own, Catherine is now preparing to return to the UK, possibly for good. Her ties to Sri Lanka run deep: she is married to a Sri Lankan and has a six- year-old son who was born here. Her decision to leave is coloured by some disappointment - she believes that Sri Lanka has become increasingly less welcoming to foreigners. Referring to some hurtful, racist comments posted on the internet by locals in response to her award, she says, “I just think it’s so sad that many people are so anti-foreigner, even when it’s something so positive” but she will nevertheless continue to work for ECSAT, lobbying for funds and support, and hopes to visit often.
Meanwhile, she sees her M.B.E as a validation of what ECSAT has been able to accomplish: “When you do this kind of community work and charity work, you get days, sometimes you get months when you think is it really worth it? Nobody seems to understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it,” she says, “but this...It’s an amazing way to finish off.”
OBE for Mark Gooding
Mark Gooding, British Deputy High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, has been awarded an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for his services to Foreign Affairs.
Mark Gooding has served in Sri Lanka since 2008, contributing to the full range of the High Commission’s work, including consular, economic, political and commercial affairs.
From 2006-2008 Mark worked as Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in London, serving under Margaret Beckett and David Miliband. He covered UK policy on Europe, Asia and Australasia, including work on the new EU Treaty, Afghanistan, Burma, Kosovo, North Korea, and Pakistan. From 2004-2006 Mark was Head of the EU Budget Team at the FCO in London, which helped deliver a successful deal on the 2007-2013 EU budget during the UK Presidency of the EU in 2005.
Mark served from 2001-2004 in China, working as Political, Economic and Press Consul at the British Consulate-General in Shanghai after two years of full time training in Mandarin Chinese. Mark studied French and German at Oxford University, and spent two years in Sri Lanka afterwards as Head of Modern Languages at the British School in Colombo.
Mark’s next diplomatic post will be as the British Ambassador to Cambodia. |
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