Creating friendships

Ishara Jayawardane

Division need not be a cause for distrust but instead a means to share and respect diversity.

Global Exchange (GX) is a partnership program managed and delivered by the British Council and Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO). The aim of the program is to create active global citizens who value volunteering, diversity, community development and social action primarily through international volunteer exchanges and other activities.

“Today is the debrief of the Global Exchange Program. We have eight UK volunteers aged between 18-25 and nine Sri Lankan volunteers who have come from different parts of the country such as Jaffna, Puttalam, Kurunegala, Ratnapura and Avissawela and Colombo as well,” Program Delivery Deputy Manager Sanjeevani Munasinghe said.

UK Volunteers and Sri Lankan Volunteers were recruited in August this year and they came over to Sri Lanka in September. GX worked with another local organization called Peace and Community Action PCA) which is based in Ampara and they are the local partner of GX. Together with the British Council and VSO and PCA - Ampara was selected by the host community.

All 17 volunteers lived with host families in the Ampara district (Kalmunai, Ampara and Akkaraipattu) and worked with local communities over the past three months.

While working in Ampara the volunteers were attached to nine community development organizations based in Ampara. All nine organizations namely Mahashakthi Foundation, Women Development Forum, Akkaraipattu Women Association, Palm Foundation, Chamber of Commerce Ampara district, Social Renaissance, Muslim Women Research and Action forum, Social Envo Vision organization and Centre for Peace Studies worked on different projects under the theme “Building Post Conflict Social Cohesion”.

“This forum has been excellent. So many things that we can never imagine. So much experience, in a program like this you see life in a new way, there are so many aspects into life which you won’t realize unless you come to a program like this. They create opportunities for us to learn things and experience things. I know how much I have learnt. It is unimaginable hearing stories from other volunteers. That means so much to you,” said Sri Lankan Volunteer Niroshini Gunasinghe.

The Daily News also spoke with Niroshini’s counterpart Grace Wood from North East London, who said she loves Sri Lanka and that is beautiful.. Having left University she didn’t know what to do, she wanted some experience. This program had been life changing for her.

Both Niroshini and Grace were able to help a family with physical disabilities in the village - both mother and two songs crippled. Only the father was working and he is a labourer so there wasn’t much income. They could not afford their medical bills. They didn’t have the knowledge to question concerning their disabilities. The girls got two doctors who said the condition could not be cured. So they brought the doctors to the village and the doctors talked to the family and examined them. Now the family have been taken to Ampara hospital where the diagnosis is being carried out. One of the doctors had promised through the Lion’s Club that the family will be given a wheelchair and counseling.

When interviewing these young ambassadors I was immediately struck by the fact that even in this small country there are so many places we have not gone to, so many places we do not know about.

PCA’s many years of experience of working within communities throughout Ampara enabled them to secure the involvement of small local community organizations that could benefit from the extra help offered by the young people, find host families to offer them lodgings locally, and support the volunteers and the GX staff to make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

PCA National Coordinator Thayaparan said, “We are proud to support this new and different sort of volunteering opportunity here in Sri Lanka. For the first time Sri Lankan young people have led the way in offering support alongside their UK counterparts to communities here in Sri Lanka. Now they will face new challenges doing the same thing in Blackburn, England”

You can find out more about GX on Facebook and more about PCA at their website.

This program is aimed at bringing young people from the UK and Sri Lanka together. The aim being to improve mutual understanding between people of different communities and societies.

“British Council has done a wide range of work such as English courses and exams and this is another area of work that we are perhaps less famous for but we do a lot of work in areas of society” said British Council Deputy Director Paul Hilder.

I spoke to the program supervisor from UK Ellen Donnelly to get a fresh angle on the event that was unfolding around me. Ellen stressed on the cordiality of the Sri Lanka people.

“Even from the first day when we had the community welcome, different communities - Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslim - came. They all did their own types of welcome. Working with people from different communities and different countries is not an easy process. When you work together you can achieve more than what you could achieve doing it alone. Sometimes the process is a little bit slow but it is very rewarding. I even learnt about the conflict and the problems in Sri Lanka. Learning about each other cultures is even more special,” said Ellen.

“As VSO Country Director, I have been very happy to be involved with GX, which is a partnership between VSO and the British Council. Implementing local partner organization for this particular exchange, was Peace and Community Action (PCA). VSO and PCA worked closely with the volunteers on their training and supporting them during their time with their partners and host families. Prior to the volunteers’ arrival, a great deal of work went into developing placements and locating host families for the volunteers for which we are very grateful to PCA’s staff in the Ampara District Offices.