Vesak

Up and down the streets on Nugegoda, stalls are cropping up with people busily constructing bright coloured lanterns on bamboo frames which vary from large to small, with tails like kites have…and Buddhist flags are seen everywhere. This very festive and brightly coloured time is a celebration that has a three fold importance. This full moon, Poya day in June marks the birth of Buddha, his attaining Enlightenment and his passing into Nirvana.

The 23rd and 24th will be a time of reflective prayer as every home will have illuminated lanterns and roads will fill with processions as people go to temple to hear monks read stories from Buddhist texts.

Street theatre and mime, free beverages and large boards called Pandles, decorated with lights and depicting various stories of Buddha’s life are created by communities together. I have some wonderful photos of preparations and will look forward to this coming Monday and Tuesday, Vesak, to take more photos to share with all of you.

I will be in Hikkaduwa on the 23rd, where AHIMSA is involved in providing psycho-social workshops to support local community members who want to be involved in healing and support with their community, so deeply impacted by the Tsunami. This Buddhist temple was the place I spent my first day when I arrived in Sri Lanka many months ago. The place was filled with people who only had the clothes they had survived the Tsunami in and were still in a state of loss and shock that seemed to lack words and description. Monica, Angie and Indika built relationships with this community from as early as the 27th when they were there providing lunch packets and water. This relationship building is at the very root of relief, development and psycho-social work.

There are communities who feel under siege with all the various INGOs and NGOs starting programs, and there are other places where organizations have been involved with the community for years.

I know I had real hesitancy when invited in initially to do a week of training. I knew I would not be at all able to work with an understanding of the context of the communities, so very diverse across this country. I am not sure that after many months I am any more able to know in any detail the unique contexts of the various rural, urban (poor neighbourhoods a block away from high rise buildings with swimming pools being built) agrarian, fisherman, corral miners, tourist, law enforcement, politicians and various military presences which participate in this complex society

In North America, to ask, “Where are you from?” is not culturally sensitive. (You are not white, you must not be Canadian?) Yet here the question happens all the time. My fictional reading has expanded immensely with no TV or radio; I have lots of time to read. The God of Small Things, My Forbidden Face, Running in the family, the Kite Runner… have all brought me to places and times, continuing to expand my learning. On occasion I think I could really do with a nice coffee, or just eating a ginger- sesame salad and sorting through all my learning. I expect many of you will be willing to join me as we share our learning on our various paths.

I listen as Paul (new staff who will be central facilitator in this peer support and peer mediation program) struggles to get his head around the differences between his experiences as a youth worker and a member of a three person mediation board (working with adults) and the differences in working with helping peers (young people) learn to mediate with each other. We confront issues of parent role, children’s freedom, advising, and authority and so it goes. Some times he shuts his eyes and I am reminded of the far side cartoon where the student has his hand in the air asking, “Can I be excused? My brain is full.” Paul sometimes feels his age catching up on him and I only hope that others can look at me and see, ‘If this woman is still learning at her age, I can too.’ And so it goes. Another week in Colombo.

13 May, 2005

Two new additions have arrived at AHIMSA. Mai is from Vietnam and a visiting student from Brandeis University. Paul is a new staff member from Colombo who has experience as a mediator these past 10 years and he will be one of the facilitators who will be working to offer the Peer Support and Peer Mediation program to young people across Sri Lanka. (Paul speaks Sinhala and Tamil as well as English.) It is exciting to finally complete the writing and undertake the training of trainers so this program can begin. The process includes working with three separate children’s clubs and groups of young people including Tamil, Sinhalese, and Muslim communities.

We have a draft of materials which will be adapted, added to with Sri Lankan examples, and finally be translated into Sinhala and Tamil languages for use across this country. The concerns about ‘western ideas coming to Sri Lanka’ and neo colonialism are challenging in the same sense when delivered by Sri Lankans and grounded in the rich Buddhist and Hindu teachings of peace. A powerful base for this program comes from the months of research with young people across Sri Lanka who shared their ideas and experiences of conflict and resolution with Angie Hermon and other AHIMSA staff. There were seven separate programs with groups of young people of various ages and Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and Christian faiths. Over 280 children participated in total.

I remember my first experiences in the far north of Canada with peace and conflict resolution when my colleague here from the UK, Jacky describes Sri Lanka as raw in many ways. No white bread, this place, but a rich texture of sounds, smells, colours, energies and peoples. As my trishaw weaves in and out of traffic, buses race with each other to get to the next stop first, and two buses, a car, a truck and a cow are all going one way down a two way road there is a sense of living on the edge.

What translates from Calgary to Chabougamo, Quebec or Batticaloa, Sri Lanka? My colleague, Monica, is reading a Sri Lankan book on psychology. (She is working in a psycho-social program with Hikkaduwa this week end.) She and I had a good laugh as someone had written about ‘Italiana Syndroma’. Are you familiar with this syndrome? It seems that the author writes about what happen to families when the father goes to work abroad, in Italy. Translation and the authoring of Sri Lankan material is essentially about grasping concepts and meaning in a culturally sensitive context. There is not only a conflict sensitive approach to programs and processes but a culturally sensitive context which is broader that the conflict.

Rather than adapting western approaches to Sri Lankan context it is an inside-out approach which asks, what is intrinsic to communities here and how does that grow and develop from within?

My work with writing, developing, and training in peer support, conflict resolution, and peer mediation is coming to an end. The next tasks for AHIMSA staff will be to inclusively continue to develop the material with the input of the young people involved in our field testing. I will be available from Canada, or the UK to connect and help with co-creating a unique program for this place and this time.

I can not describe the excitement of watching the development of people, programs and processes as we work together toward a peaceful place. Sometimes a negative peace occurs as there is an absence of war; people are just tired of it all. The positive peace, built between people in homes, communities, schools is growing. The seeds are growth, people move from survive to thrive, and peace happens one relationship at a time.


The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes from within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the centre of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this centre is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of people.

Black Elk
The Sacred Pipe


Conflict abound. Three projects approaching the same thing, work in one community, and none communicate with each other. Conflict resolvers struggle within their own groups. Discussion about the ethics of programs, the directions of organizations... it all happens. Conflict is lively, sullen, challenging and at times destructive. Yet also there is good will and the willingness to leap into peace with all its risks and problems. I am honoured to be a part of it.

A day in the life of an NGO

Go to web site www.ahimsa.lk to check out all the various programs and people I work with here at AHIMSA.

It is easy to tell who is in the office by the sandals at the door, entering AHIMSA’s office which is on a road of homes (the one across from us has also become an office). Our building is an open plan so you can sit at our large table and see the balcony upstairs as well. Our main floor has a large open area, a kitchen, bathroom, and resource library. The second floor has three bedrooms and three bathrooms, which are offices with computers. And upstairs on the third floor is a loft type room which opens onto a balcony. All of our computers are networked and on broad band.

There is a wall around the whole property and to enter AHIMSA’s garden and building, one must ring the bell, which sounds like birds chirping. I have answered the gate very often when the birds chirp sounding much like a bell. There is actually a bird here that sounds like tweet, tweet!

Kassapa sleeps here at the office and Monica sleeps in a room here when she is not at her room in the boarding house. Monica is building a home and it should be completed by October-November. She plans to bring her parents and sister to Colombo to live with her then. Monica's 5 cats are the other full time residents of 18A Pelawatte Mawatha. All are female ginger and multi coloured and related to each other. (And all are fixed.)

Wasantha is one of the first to arrive at the office. He keeps the place clean, takes care of the plants and garden, and is very skilled with computers, organizing office needs, and brings tea at mid morning and mid afternoon every day. He is indispensable, taking orders & collecting lunch packets (rice curry) every day. He can also give cats medicine and offer help in too many areas to list.

Kassapa, Monica and Indika are the directors of AHIMSA; you can see their pictures on the web. Staff include Sureka and Himali with interns: Subha and Inosha completing projects for their degrees (focusing on Micro finance programs for low income communities). Jacky has been here for a year and is a Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) from the UK who works with capacity building.
My work is primarily focused on Peer Mediation, a program where AHIMSA is partnered with Save the Children in Sri Lanka.

Fans keep the air circulating and cool a bit; the best cooling is after a rain storm when there are perhaps a couple hours of respite from the very hot and humid weather. Lots of water is drunk here and tape water is good here so no need for bottled or boiled.

AHIMSA began work as a conflict resolution NGO and now has expanded into relief and development programs. The conflict resolution work done here is mostly about self awareness and leadership skills with an emphasis on theatre techniques and activities. As the central aspects of ADR such as negotiation and mediation have not been aspects of their work in the past, we hope to bring on new staff as I provide training and material in support of these areas.

‘Neo Colonialism’ is the sense of a country that is once again seeing western ‘developed’ countries ‘showing the way’. It is not only the JVP political party that is hostile/cynical about the arrival of those from away. It is fair to ask ones self about the usefulness of ones work. I was invited to work here before the Tsunami relief workers arrived in growing numbers. My work is about working together with Sri Lankan staff in creating material that is context sensitive and to co-create facilitated workshops lead by Sri Lankan staff. Sinhalese, Tamil and English materials and training are provided with words which do not translate easily among the three languages. (There is no distinction between cold and cool in Sri Lankan languages, and why would there be?)

As the only white person I see on my 20 minute walk to and from the office, I wonder whether my work is seen in the same neo colonial view as all westerners are painted with the same brush. I feel very comfortable and safe here and I am happy to be working with young people who will learn new skills in their lives. I am still very aware of the capacities of Sri Lankans who have lived and worked with conflict and peacebuilding for many years now. There is a push-pull inside me as I question what I have to bring to people with a lived experience, I can not fully realize.

I feel humbled by the strength and courage people have in meeting the challenges of their ever changing context. Our day has a nice combination of relaxed visiting, writing (material, proposals, reports) meetings, work, and for some the day ends around 5-6. Some work week-ends and nights, as there seems to be a never ending possibility of work. Monica has received several invitations for training and work with other organizations. How does she balance her work with AHIMSA and all the work else where?

The sky is darkening, and there seems to be frequent rain at the end of the day. Sri Lanka’s climate changes are making the usual weather, unusual now. The storm will often shut down our power and internet so I best end this now.

I think of the huge learning curve I experienced with work in First Nations communities in Canada. Initially I spent most of my time trying to connect members of the first nations community to refer the community to, when they
Invited me to their communities. I feel a similar humble inability to meet the needs of a community that I need years to get to know in any depth. It is my hope to bring something to others which offers support for the work Sri Lankans do. Sometimes I think I would be best off serving tea.

cup of tea or coffee?

Martha