Sri Lanka Design Festival

Link up to published version

“It seems everyone is going crazy” Karen grins as we step through the elevator doors at the Academy of Design (AOD).  People rush around laughing and talking, walking through the wrong doors, doubling back and displaying signs of hype-infection in general. Everyone from the cleaning lady to herself, Principal Karen MacLeod is knee-deep in preparations for the third consecutive leg of the Sri Lanka Design Festival.

Small rectangular glasses with thick black rims accent Karen’s face, framed with brown plaited hair held together by a funky bright-blue hair-tie. Although she’s Principal, she’s keenly aware of everything going on at the school and is highly involved. She even knows most of the students by name, probably how she keeps track of all that’s going on. “I arrived here last September in the middle of design festival preparations and was a bit “wow!”” she laughs, “and I’ve found the only thing to do is just try and not go crazy!”

Up on the third floor, students in the fashion department are busy working on pieces they will submit for review and approval for the festival runway. The hangers along the walls of the workspace are neatly arranged with pieces already finished, but the tables are piled high with tonnes of colourful material of various textures and uses and students sit and stand around stitching, pinning, chatting laughing and some quite worried. Dilki, 2nd year fashion student has just been “blasted” and is painstakingly attaching hundreds of satin flowers to a bridal dress she has already finished. It’s the third day she’s doing this with the help of her friends, but she’s patient, because AOD requires “very very high quality” as Karen puts it. None of this is easy.

Anuradha and Lonali, who are part of a team of five students who’ve volunteered to work with local artisans on handloom craft projects, know this all too well. They’ve been spending 14-hour work-days in Gampaha working with nearly 70 artisans, coordinating teams as they take fresh takes in terms of colour and quality on the familiar local art. Some of the exhibits this work will produce include household items made from recycled thread and even denim-inspired handloom sarees! “Craft is no more about little old ladies sitting home and doing things because they have nothing better to do” Karen says, explaining how they’re aiming to contemporize national arts to give it a foothold and future in bigger markets.

And it’s not just handloom, they’ve got artisans from each and every province on the design festival agenda this year! They’ve also got elite international designers, advertising gurus, photographers and opinion leaders lined up to take part at the gala exhibitions and workshops that will take place at AOD and Mt. Lavinia Hotel. “We’re bringing everyone together on this to envision what Sri Lankan design can and will be in the next few years” Karen enthuses. It’s tonnes of work and everyone is so completely absorbed in it, gearing to give guests a blast of an experience, probably better than we’ve seen in the last two years..

“Who?” one girl questions when I ask her which floor the lobby is on – there is obviously only one thing on her mind. That same thing should most definitely be in your agenda for next week – especially since entrance is free!

United: One People

“Let us build a new Sri Lanka!” B. Priyathanushan of Vattapalai M.V. called out to his audience on the evening of October 29. Professionals, volunteers, well-wishers, teachers and parents gathered at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute with students from Kandy, Mullaithivu, Vidutaltivu, Vishwamadu, Killinochchi and Mannar as they spoke, danced and sang in English, Sinhala and Tamil, to celebrate the launch of the Ekamuthu Oray Makkal (One United People) Unity Mission Trust (EOM-UMT).

Priyathanushan stood at the podium that night alongside two of his fellow students, to share his vision of a Sri Lanka that would recognize that “unity is strength” and step “beyond racial and religious differences” into a truly peaceful future.

EOM-UMT works to “foster and facilitate national unity, reconciliation, integration and healing amongst and between the children of the North, Wanni, South, Central and other areas of Sri Lanka”. The philosophy behind the trust is a simple one: that of friendship. “What we’re trying to do is create friendships between children of different communities, because it’s only personal relationships that can be translated into social change” explains trust coordinator Bertal Pinto-Jayawardane.

Although the trust is now officially established, EOM does not boast of grand beginnings.  It is another simply inspiring story of how one family, in its bid to help those in need, began approaching friends and work colleagues in order to collect whatever possible resources they could, to provide for those in need soon after the end of the war. Their genuine efforts to reach out soon grew and developed into what is now a source of true inspiration and encouragement to the younger generation of the North and East.

“I am extremely proud” S. Yasutha from Vishvamadu M.V. reiterated during her testimony, as she shared how her experiences at the EOM camps helped her learn, develop as a person, and most importantly, build friendships. Her generation is now stepping out of a war-torn life into something they have never experienced before and which we in other parts take for granted, and these friendships will, in time, prove to be strong links of support as they face challenges yet unknown. The testimonies shared that evening at the gala launch of the EOM-UMT were moving proof of what personal contact can do to remedy communal wounds that have festered for longer than three decades.

EOM-UMT operates on an inter-faith platform, giving primary importance to the recognition of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of Sri Lankan society. Their main aims are to support the educational needs of the children in the war-affected areas by “developing reference libraries, providing school books and other requirements to support classroom studies and sports, and conducting small-scale infrastructure projects to facilitate schoolwork”.

So far, they have completed food, educational supplies and medical projects in Menik Farm, Chettikulam, Jaffna, Kayts, Vidutaltivu and Mannar a number of times over the last two years. Although this sounds like a good list of achievements for an informally organized group of “like-minded people” who see themselves simply as “concerned and caring citizens who love Sri Lanka”, their real victory – in the friendship business – is far greater. Photographs from the EOM Camps held in Colombo in December 2010 and Mullaithivu in June 2011 show tonnes of laughter and gleeful smile after gleeful smile, depicting students from Colombo, Kandy, Jaffna, Mannar and Mullaithivu as they “chill out”, play games and do creative stuff together.

“What have we achieved in 30 years of war?” S. Logeswaran of Vidyananda M.V., Mullaithivu asked that evening. “We have seen only death, maimed families and widows. Violence will only give us destruction. Only love can achieve anything.” Clichetic you may think, and uncannily strong for a teenager. But it is that very strength that testifies to its genuineness, for he speaks out of more experience than most of us.

Life-by-Life

Link up to published version

It’s not breaking news that there is abject poverty on our doorsteps. But that abject poverty is not part of our reality either. In one part of town, teenagers sleep in their branded pyjamas dreaming of the latest Apple product while in another, their peers in shanties shiver through the sleepless night. Older children of poorer families are forced to stay home from school, hungry, looking after their younger siblings while there are those of others, happily skipping school to sleep off fatigue from a party the night before.

Those poverty-stricken children lucky enough to attend school regularly quite often wear the same uniform every day of the week and are literally barefoot (not a fashion statement or your favourite hangout). In many village schools, a number of students faint each morning from lack of nourishment. It is not a surprise that the majority of these students, not having the luxury of various avenues for higher education at the end of their credit cards, drop out of school soon after O-Levels and start looking for employment. Financial sustenance being a difficult thing to come by with no proper education, many begin turning to crime in order to provide for themselves and sometimes their families also.

It is easy to sit back and expect the state to deal with such issues, Gowri Kariyawasam, President of Business Professional Women (BPW) shares, but also irresponsible, considering how deep-rooted and wide-spread they are. “If each and every organization within Sri Lanka undertook to focus part of their work on the future generation” she muses, awed at the implications, “how our prospects would improve!”

Just this September saw the initiation of Project Change, what BPW hopes will be a pilot project to translate this postulation to action. The organisation has recognized 2,000 children in the Hanwella area that need help, and are working to enlist 2,000 donors that will fund these kids’ welfare. The programme will provide the children with school books, uniforms and shoes, as well as a supply of dry rations for the family. All it takes is 12,000 rupees per annum, Gowri explains, adding that this breaks down into a mere 30 rupees a day, a pittance really. Mechanisms are already in place to make sure that these children get a glass of milk at school each week. Not only does this help improve the state of their health, it also directly impacts their educational development – not one of these children misses school on ‘Milk Day’ if they can help it.

Two weekends ago, 150 boy-scouts and girl-guides from schools in the Avissawella, Hanwella and Kosgama areas were brought together by the BPW, simply to have a good time at project chairperson and outgoing BPW president Janaki Gunewardena’s home in Boralugoda. The house is spacious and welcoming, opening out at every possible window to a garden filled with the aroma of flowers and the sounds of birds chirruping in the surrounding paddy and coconut plantations. “We have been given more than others in this world simply to share” Mrs. Gunewardena shrugs in her typical matter-of-fact way, “not to accumulate for ourselves!”

Alongside the village-school students at the Boralugoda house that weekend, and having just as much fun with them was an unexpected lot – students from the Elizabeth Moir School. Behind Project Change is an often missed recognition of the fact that more privileged children are not uncaring and selfish as often depicted, but simply unaware of the life conditions of their less fortunate neighbours. Mrs. Gunewardena remembers her life as a youngster growing up in Colombo in the 40’s and 50’s and that despite her grandparents and parents often bringing less fortunate people home to bathe and feed, she “never wondered about their tomorrow, how they would find their meal the next day”. It was later in life that she began to see the importance of a more permanent solution to the problem. “We need to break that wall between the classes” she shares, a thought that will undoubtedly worry some, “otherwise we can’t really change anything”.

BPW hopes that providing continuing opportunities for young people from different economic backgrounds to mix and mingle will help start lasting friendships across cultural barriers. This in turn they believe will increase awareness and involvement of youth in welfare endeavours geared towards their less fortunate peers, not only making such projects more successful but also enriching lives and equipping them to be socially responsible adults. “We hope that some of these children at least will take it to their hearts to fulfil the need” Mrs. Gunewardena says.

Squealing, giggling and running around in a dainty cotton dress at the Boralugoda house is Ayoshi Hapuaarachchi, the Project Change “mascot”. “She’s like my adopted grandchild”, Mrs. Gunewardena smiles down on the baby, sharing the story of how Niluka, her domestic helper, confessed one night that she couldn’t afford to provide for the child in her womb. They made arrangements for the baby to be legally adopted at birth by another couple, but there were complications with the process, and it was decided that Mrs. Gunewardena would help bring her up instead. “Just because she was born into a poor family doesn’t make her any less beautiful, intelligent or capable of contributing to the welfare of her country and people” she argues, “she deserves a decent life as much as any other child”. As Ayoshi grew into the bouncy-bubbly one-year-old she now is, Mrs. Gunewardena came to realize the significance of the impact a single individual could make on a child’s future, and Change was born.

Neither Mrs. Gunewardena nor Gowri Kariyawasam though, is interested in talking much about themselves or even their work. The thing is to see, hear, understand and do. Fifty metres from the main Avissawella highway and a right turn onto a concrete road lies Munamale, the first village that BPW will Change. The area seems decent as some of the houses even have plastered walls and children grin from ear to ear showing gaps in their teeth as one young fellow wobbles off his bicycle. But the illusion is quickly dispersed with. A few hundred metres down and the road is simply a wide gravel path, on either side of which lie tiny dwellings, some of wattle and daub with thatch roofs, some of wooden planks and bits of concrete sheeting. By the time we arrive at homes that are mere shacks – metal frames covered with polythene and canvas – the road is too narrow and uneven to travel on and we are forced to turn back. “It gets worse” Mrs. Gunewardena explains, “I don’t want to put you through that”.

It is only a month since Change was initiated on September 21, and it is evident that BPW has jumped straight in the deep end. Gowri Kariyawasam is nevertheless convinced that this pilot project will spark nation-wide interest and involvement, really bringing about Change. It is most definitely not the first time an endeavour of this sort has been stepped into, but Change seems different in its bid to create links between the generations as well as economic classes – a radical move on their part. And though it is still a distinct group of people heading single-minded to achieve great things behind the scenes of Change, their aim is to get simply everyone involved.

“As long as you can talk or even just think, you’ve got to help where you can” Mrs. Gunewardena emphasizes, “you’d be surprised at how a little attention now can change a child’s future”. Most importantly though, BPW is aware of the individuality of each child that goes into the great mosaic that is the future of our country: “Change Sri Lanka, One Child at a Time”.