My visit to Satyodaya (the name means 'dawn of truth') in Kandy, Sri Lanka started out slow. The first few days, I mainly was just hanging out in their office/library reading reports and articles about their work, and talking to their staff. Don't feel TOO sorry for me though, because their office/library/guesthouse is on a hill overlooking Kandy lake and has a spectacular view. And the staff are pretty interesting as well. The organization (they prefer to call it a movement) was started by a Jesuit priest, Father Paul Caspersz, who is still with Satyodaya even though he just celebrated his 80th birthday last week. He has a great memory, and lots of stories about the problems the Indian Tamil tea estate workers have faced, and how Satyodaya has worked with them (and their Sinhalese neighbors) over the past 30 years.
The group started as an intentional living community and research center, bringing together all the various ethnic/religious/linguistic groups of Sri Lanka. As ethnic tensions grew over the years, their work extended to community organizing and development. They have a special interest in improving the economic conditions of the laborors on the tea plantations, but in the process they strive to build relationships between the Tamils and the Sinhalese ethnic groups (and Muslims as well, when any are present in the area). I've been especially impressed with how well they do this - it is quite a hopeful sign in a country that has struggled with nearly 3 decades of ethnic warfare.
The other thing that is impressive about the movement is the way they develop local leadership in the communities. In all of the development projects they are involved in, they only provide the initial training and access to resources - the local residents themselves make the decisions, do the work, and maintain the projects. They always start their involvement in an area by encouraging the residents to form a CPO (community people's organization) and build a community center.
I've visited three very different field sites so far, all former tea estates that have mostly been divided into smaller private plots or turned into villages - all with a lack of employment for the local people since the larger tea estates are no longer functioning. At the first, Craigingilt, the community was able to petition the government to buy a plot of land and then build simple but decent homes with no-interest loans from Satyodaya (reminded me of my Habitat days). In the second, Erin, the former tea pluckers are still living in the cramped, dingy linerooms provided by the estate. And today we went to Luckyland, where the multi-ethnic community has banded together to build a water system that will pipe clean drinking water to every house in the village. I'll write about these in more detail later.
I'm actually reading Jeffrey Sach's "End of Poverty" right now, which is making it especially interesting to contemplate economic development from both ends of the spectrum, since he approaches the problem of poverty from a governement perspective and what can be done on a macro-economic level to improve an entire country's financial situation, and in the meantime I'm seeing a very personal view of how poverty effects individuals at the village level - but all the buzzwords like globalization and immigration and such are very relevant to the situation of these villagers living at the end of a twisting dirt road on the top of a mountain... (as a side note, on the bus ride today home from Luckyland I saw a 'taco bell' sign on a small shop that I'm sure only serves sri lankan curries, and an 'ikea' sign on a local furniture store in a small village, too!).
The group started as an intentional living community and research center, bringing together all the various ethnic/religious/linguistic groups of Sri Lanka. As ethnic tensions grew over the years, their work extended to community organizing and development. They have a special interest in improving the economic conditions of the laborors on the tea plantations, but in the process they strive to build relationships between the Tamils and the Sinhalese ethnic groups (and Muslims as well, when any are present in the area). I've been especially impressed with how well they do this - it is quite a hopeful sign in a country that has struggled with nearly 3 decades of ethnic warfare.
The other thing that is impressive about the movement is the way they develop local leadership in the communities. In all of the development projects they are involved in, they only provide the initial training and access to resources - the local residents themselves make the decisions, do the work, and maintain the projects. They always start their involvement in an area by encouraging the residents to form a CPO (community people's organization) and build a community center.
I've visited three very different field sites so far, all former tea estates that have mostly been divided into smaller private plots or turned into villages - all with a lack of employment for the local people since the larger tea estates are no longer functioning. At the first, Craigingilt, the community was able to petition the government to buy a plot of land and then build simple but decent homes with no-interest loans from Satyodaya (reminded me of my Habitat days). In the second, Erin, the former tea pluckers are still living in the cramped, dingy linerooms provided by the estate. And today we went to Luckyland, where the multi-ethnic community has banded together to build a water system that will pipe clean drinking water to every house in the village. I'll write about these in more detail later.
I'm actually reading Jeffrey Sach's "End of Poverty" right now, which is making it especially interesting to contemplate economic development from both ends of the spectrum, since he approaches the problem of poverty from a governement perspective and what can be done on a macro-economic level to improve an entire country's financial situation, and in the meantime I'm seeing a very personal view of how poverty effects individuals at the village level - but all the buzzwords like globalization and immigration and such are very relevant to the situation of these villagers living at the end of a twisting dirt road on the top of a mountain... (as a side note, on the bus ride today home from Luckyland I saw a 'taco bell' sign on a small shop that I'm sure only serves sri lankan curries, and an 'ikea' sign on a local furniture store in a small village, too!).
1 comment:
After reading your entries, I got to wondering about how the United States government handles the poverty issue. I'm beginning to think that all over the world most of the programs for low income people are run by private organizations. Why? But at least there are many programs available to those who need them.
Ammaa
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