In July 2012, five strangers – Ann Selvadurai, Sabina Martyn, Seshma Kumararatne, Sahani Chandraratna, and Sivashankar Krishnakumar – boarded a plane to Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, under the auspices of a unique Asia Foundation fellowship program. All they shared was a Sri Lankan heritage and a common desire to reconnect with the country that their parents once called home. Some six months later, the group returned to North America as best friends, each with an enhanced understanding of contemporary Sri Lanka and a tangible contribution to the country’s recovery efforts. They had become the first alumni of The Asia Foundation’s “LankaCorps” program.

The 2012 LankaCorps Fellows, left to right: Sabina Martyn; Seshma Kumararatne; Sahani Anne Chandraratna; Sivashankar Krishnakumar; and Ann Selvadurai.

The fellowship was designed with two main goals in mind: to provide young adults of Sri Lankan heritage the opportunity to professionally and personally engage with the development of post-conflict Sri Lanka, and to bridge the gap between the diaspora and Sri Lanka. Speak with any of the five inaugural alumni and they will tell you with great enthusiasm that the program was a success on both counts.

To bring greater attention and awareness to the fellowship program, The Asia Foundation’s Asian America Exchange Unit (the San Francisco-based team responsible for the promotion and joint-administration of the program) asked the fellows to share their experiences on a 48-hour “reunion tour” in San Francisco and Los Angeles from March 22-23. Having been apart since the conclusion of the program in December 2012, the fellows were excited about the prospect of reuniting, especially to help promote the program that brought them together. Their first stop was the Foundation’s headquarters in San Francisco, where they reflected on their time in Sri Lanka and engaged with staff and outside guests in a lively discussion on the country’s transition. In addition to giving the audience a flavor for their work with their various placements, the fellows shared anecdotes and observations about everything from harrowing experiences with Sri Lankan public transportation to reconciliation efforts in the northern regions of the country.

LankaCorps fellow, Sivashankar Krishnakumar (above), worked with the Northern Development Initiative, the Murali Cup, the Seenigama project in the South and with projects at the Foundation for Goodness head office in Colombo.

The next morning, the alumni, escorted by three Foundation staff including myself, made their way to the home of Naj and Gwen Nagendran in Los Angeles. The Nagendrans are longtime active members of the Sri Lankan overseas community and helped to make the first ever LankaCorps program possible. They generously hosted an event that brought together some 40 members of the Sri Lankan community to learn about LankaCorps and how to support the program. Those in the audience, particularly second generation Sri Lankans, seemed visibly moved by the presentation. After over 30 minutes of lively discussion, the fellows broke off into smaller groups, answering further questions about how to get involved with the program as applicants or donors.

Watching the diaspora community react to the fellows’ presentation, it became clear that the vision of LankaCorps had been realized: These young, second-generation Sri Lankans, having had only limited exposure to their country of origin, were now engaging with the Sri Lankan community about contemporary Sri Lanka on a personal level. By giving them the opportunity to take ownership of part of Sri Lanka’s post-conflict development, the fellows formed lifetime connections with their ancestral home and each other. In just a few months, another even larger group of strangers will depart to Colombo. A lasting relationship with Sri Lanka awaits them.

Read more about LankaCorps and learn how to support the program.

James Grant is a program assistant for The Asia Foundation’s Asian American Exchange unit in San Francisco. He can be reached at jgrant@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not necessarily those of The Asia Foundation.

As a Canadian of Sri Lankan heritage, I am part of the growing diaspora living in the West who grew up speaking English as my first language. Since arriving in Sri Lanka as a LankaCorps Fellow, I have been able to explore my “mother tongue,” taking lessons in both Tamil and Sinhala. In Sri Lanka, a nation embattled by decades of violent ethnic conflict, I have found that one’s identity is inextricably linked to language.

Language remains a strong dividing force among Sri Lanka’s population, comprised of 75 percent Sinhalese and 24 percent Tamil. Above, a police officer attends a Tamil-language training, supported by The Asia Foundation, in Vavuniya in the North. Photo/Karl Grobl

Sri Lanka’s population is comprised of 75 percent Sinhalese and 24 percent Tamil speakers (11% Sri Lankan Tamils, 9% Moors, and 4% Indian Tamils), with smaller communities of Malays, Burghers, and others. The Sri Lankan civil war, which ended in 2009, was triggered in part by the introduction of language policies that created divisions along ethnic and linguistic lines. In 1956, the Official Language Act No. 33 declared Sinhala as the only official language, replacing English which had been imposed under British colonial rule. In 1958, in response to the grievances of the Tamil-speaking people, the government passed the Tamil Language (Special Provisions) Act, in which Tamil was declared an official language in the Tamil-majority North and East. The 13th Amendment in 1987 to Article 18 of the 1978 Constitution stated that “the official language of Sri Lanka is Sinhala” while “Tamil shall also be an official language,” with English as a “link language.” While this recognized both Sinhala and Tamil as official languages, the wording was still contentious, as some perceived it as referring to Tamil in a secondary sense. In response, in 1988, the 16th Amendment to the constitution corrected the position by stating, “Sinhala and Tamil shall be the languages of administration throughout Sri Lanka.”

The integral role of language in the post-conflict reconciliation process was acknowledged in the 2011 report produced by the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), appointed by the Sri Lankan Government. The report, which itself was initially released in English and only became available in Sinhala and Tamil languages in August 2012, includes these recommendations:

• The learning of each other’s languages should be made a compulsory part of the school curriculum. This would be a primary tool to ensure attitudinal changes amongst the two communities. Teaching Tamil to Sinhala children and Sinhala to Tamil children will result in greater understanding of each other’s cultures.

• The proper implementation of the language policy and ensuring trilingual (Sinhala, Tamil, and English) fluency of future generations becomes vitally important. A trilingual education will allow children from very young days to get to understand each other.

In fact, some action has been taken to achieve the goals of the LLRC report. The government has implemented a number of institutional mechanisms, including the creation of the Department of Official Languages, the Official Languages Commission, and the Ministry of National Languages and Social Integration, which leads official language implementation at the national level. The Ministry in turn has introduced island-wide language training and incentive programs for government offices to learn the official languages, intensified language training programs, and appointed several hundred officers at district and local levels to coordinate implementation  of the official language policy. The National Languages Project supports translator training programs and increased citizen access to services in their national language of choice, and is developing smaller-scale language policy implementation models at selected government institutes which interact with the public. Meanwhile, local and international NGOs are supporting the language policy through community awareness building and education, lobbying and monitoring, and other smaller-scale language projects.

While these initiatives demonstrate commitment to LLRC recommendations, language remains a strong dividing force in the country. Technically, government services are required to be available in each of the official languages; however, a common complaint is that forms are often only available in a single language and that translators are often unavailable. To achieve trilingualism, it is necessary to provide high-quality language instruction in English, Sinhala, and Tamil. However, not only is this expensive, Sri Lanka also lacks enough qualified instructors to do so. Civil society participation in the large-scale implementation of the national language policy needs to be strengthened, as do the monitoring and follow-up activities being carried out to improve the effectiveness of the government’s programs.

Through my experience as a LankaCorps Fellow with the National Water Supply & Drainage Board (NWS&DB), I’ve seen how valuable multilingualism can be. While the large majority of workplace operations are completed in Sinhala, as a national body, the NWS&DB is also responsible for providing services to Tamil-speaking areas, making it necessary to be able to communicate in Tamil. In addition, because many projects are funded or completed in partnership with international governments or aid organizations, the ability to communicate in English is also required.

A common theory in Sri Lanka is that the key to unifying the country as well as making sure that students are able to compete in a globalized economy is to introduce English as the sole, universal language of instruction, rather than the current separate streams for Sinhala, Tamil, and English instruction. While knowledge of English is a definite asset, it is also important that the next generation of Sri Lankans grow up learning to speak the two national languages. For example, in my discussions with local NGOs about community development, I have heard Tamil and Sinhala conversations peppered with English words such as “capacity building,” “sustainability,” and “livelihoods.”  This shows that already some concepts are being carried forward in English rather than the native Sri Lankan languages, affecting the transfer of ideas between native speakers.

The LLRC recommendation for trilingualism is a lofty goal, but a worthwhile one. Language is a tool for cultivating a culture of trust and understanding, and the ability to communicate with someone in their mother tongue is an invaluable step toward healing ethnic divides to achieve lasting peace.

Read more about The Asia Foundation’s LankaCorps program.

Sabina Martyn is a 2012 LankaCorps Fellow, working with the National Water Supply and Drainage Board on water supply projects. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not those of The Asia Foundation.

The 2012 LankaCorps Fellows, left to right: Sabina Martyn; Seshma Kumararatne; Sahani Anne Chandraratna; Sivashankar Krishnakumar; and Ann Selvadurai.

Below is an excerpt from an article published in Sri Lanka’s The Island that profiles the first five fellows to participate in The Asia Foundation’s LankaCorps, a new volunteer program that gives young professionals of Sri Lankan origin the opportunity to contribute to the dynamic, multi-ethnic nation’s post-war recovery through six-month fellowships at various host organizations.

For Sivashankar Krishnakumar, an electrical engineer from California who is placed with the Foundation of Goodness, organizing the Murali Harmony Cup was a stimulating experience, opening vistas hitherto unexplored. Born in Jaffna, Sivashankar left for the U.S. with his family as a young boy and graduated from the University of California at Riverside. Prior to his involvement in LankaCorps, his only direct exposure to Sri Lanka was during the ceasefire. “Today I see a totally different nation devoid of war,” said Sivashankar, whose extensive travels in many parts of the island including Seenigama, Trincomalee, Mankulam, Vavuniya, and Jaffna, has widened his horizons. “I learned many things about Sri Lanka which I would never have learned through a textbook or parental input.” Organizing the Murali Cup was an enthralling experience that gave him an opportunity to be part of the North-South reconciliation process. “LankaCorps has given me a one-of-a-kind opportunity to experience this wonderful country personally and professionally. The impact it has on me is so profound, so much so I intend to return to Sri Lanka to help develop the country.”

Commending Sivashankar’s contribution to the Foundation of Goodness, Founder and Chief Trustee, Kushil Gunasekera said, “Shankar’s placement was very timely considering our on-going humanitarian work in the North. He is to be admired for wanting to help in a concrete, hands-on way. At his age, very few will come back for six months, giving up a lucrative IT job to serve his country, which to me is a real eye opener for those who are watching things happen as opposed to Shankar who is making things happen!” The Murali Cup matches were held at five venues in the North similar to a mini cricket world cup for school boys. Gunasekera said: “I cannot adequately describe the role he performed to make this historic event a great success. His passion to work at the grassroots level and his coordination of the logistics were outstanding.”

Quite different to her previous short visits to the country as a tourist, LankaCorps has enabled Sabina Martyn, from Canada, to immerse herself in day-to-day life in Sri Lanka, through work and in her leisure time. Sabina, a water engineer by profession and graduate of the University of Guelph, had relied mainly on the media and her parents’ stories and memories to shape her ideas of Sri Lanka. “LankaCorps has challenged me to develop my own perspectives and seek my own experiences. I have also been able to explore my heritage. I visited Jaffna, which I had not been able to do in past visits because of the war. It was a surreal experience to walk the same streets that my ancestors had, and to feel so closely tied to a place I had never even visited before. The opportunity to work in Sri Lanka has been an invaluable complement to my previous Canadian work experience and education. My placement at the National Water Supply and Drainage Board has been a rewarding experience and helped me to comprehend and apply my skills to the complex environmental, financial, and social contexts surrounding the implementation of water supply projects in the country,” said Sabina, who also had the opportunity of interacting with high school students from across the country as a weekend volunteer at a youth leadership conference organized by Sri Lanka Unites.

Read full article.

For many first- and second-generation people of Sri Lankan heritage, Sri Lanka casts a curious spell. It may be a result of being fed a steady diet of their parents’ nostalgia pie. Other children of recent immigrants from Asia, Eastern Europe, Central America, and Africa might experience the same emotional tug, but if you’ve grown up in a Sri Lankan sub-culture, you can be excused for thinking that your situation is a little different.

From decades of civil war, Sri Lanka has lost significant economic ground and many of its most skilled and educated leaders. Photo by Karl Grobl.

The island’s exoticism has been romanticized by Western explorers, writers, and scholars for centuries, and this picture has been embraced and embellished by Sri Lankans themselves, particularly among the hundreds of thousands of diaspora sprinkled throughout the world.

Cultivating feelings of “exceptionalism” is partly an antidote to the country’s obscurity in their adopted countries, and resistance to conflating all of South Asia with India: “no, it’s that island off the tip of India” is something that easily trips off the tongue of overseas Sri Lankans.

This sense of nostalgia is likely to be familiar to anyone of Sri Lankan heritage with parents who migrated to America, England, Australia, or Canada in the 1960s and 1970s and who cling to recollections of an idyllic place they knew as Ceylon. During that time, there was no television to while away the evenings; conversation was the favorite past time. Friends and neighbors didn’t call ahead before meeting, they just dropped in. Limited social mobility generally kept people from getting above their station in life. The army was a ceremonial one that only left its barracks for parades. Police wore khaki shorts and safari hats and carried World War I vintage rifles that looked formidable but weren’t loaded. The middle class of different ethnic communities mixed freely, went to school together, and often intermarried. The first wave of immigrants who journeyed back, sometimes after many years or even decades, were invariably disappointed that things weren’t the same.

The first insurgency led by Sinhalese youth in 1971 and the second, deadlier armed conflict between the government and young Tamil separatists that began in the late 1970s represented a cold water splash of reality that all was not well in paradise. A country that some would have preserved as a sleepy, post-colonial theme park suddenly looked frightening, messy, and rebellious, and had a doubtful future. As a result, the size of the diaspora doubled and trebled in size. Events in Sri Lanka after 1983 overshadowed the common experiences of Sinhalese and Tamils and strained the natural sociability that drew them together, while increasing the nostalgia for the way things were before the other side “spoiled” the country. There were now two Sri Lankan diasporas – one Sinhalese, one Tamil – increasingly embittered toward one another.

Sri Lanka has lost significant economic ground and many of its most skilled and educated leaders during the war; it now must heal social divides – both in-country and among its diaspora. Frontline public and private agencies that are working on these problems in Sri Lanka are open to an infusion of skills, leadership, and fresh, international perspectives.

However, under the circumstances, it has been a challenge to ignite the second generation’s interest in Sri Lanka, especially those in the Unites States, given America’s strong assimilationist tendencies: Sri Lankans in America are scattered across communities from coast to coast, not concentrated in close-knit, urban enclaves. Now more than ever, the young diaspora is likely to be preoccupied with problems closer to home such as the recession, widening social divisions, and the lack of political leadership to solve entrenched structural problems that have a more immediate impact on their lives.

In order to provide young adults in the Sri Lankan diaspora community the opportunity to personally participate in the re-building of post-war Sri Lanka, to experience Sri Lanka first-hand, to see the country today through their own eyes, and to arrive at a better, unfiltered understanding of its contemporary affairs, The Asia Foundation is launching LankaCorps. The new volunteer program gives young professionals of Sri Lankan origin the opportunity to contribute to the dynamic, multi-ethnic nation’s post-war recovery through six-month fellowships where they will be placed in government agencies, the private sector, and community-based organizations and nonprofits.

By applying their education, skills, ideas, and energy, LankaCorps fellows will contribute to the country’s development and recovery from a divisive, destructive war. Fellows should be college graduates with a year or more of work experience. Fellowships will be structured; host organizations will be required to provide detailed job descriptions, supervision, and mentoring. LankaCorps is an opportunity for fellows to grow personally and professionally, and also to make a unique and lasting connection with their country of origin.

Read more about LankaCorps and application guidelines.

*Editor’s note: This article has been edited slightly from the original version.

Nilan Fernando is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Sri Lanka. He can be reached at nfernando@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.