Listening Project
Hi everyone,
I was away from Colombo for the past week working as a facilitator for the "Listening Project". The basic idea behind the project was to send teams to various parts of the country to have discussions with people about their experiences with international assistance, whether it be humanitarian, livelihood, emergency, and so on.
I led a team to Anuradhapura district which sits in the north central part of the country and is one of the original buddhist kingdoms dating back 2300 years. The cultural aspects were interesting, but I was more taken by the stories people told us about what is happening in the area in terms of assistance and development. Two of the days were spent on the northern defence line which separates the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) and government areas. It was amazing hearing the perspectives of people constantly displaced, sent to internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, and then starting over. Many of the people we spoke to had lost family members in bombings and attacks, were living in temporary shelters, and had very little money (if any), but they were some of the kindest and warmest people I've ever met in my life.
It was an opportunity for me to get into the field, leave my desk in Colombo, and gain a new experience in Sri Lanka. AMAZING!!!
2 comments:
SOunds like a great way to get an insider perspective on things... right on the front line. Was security a big issue for you going there?
It was definitely one of the highlights of my time in Sri Lanka. Security was a bit of an issue, and there had been some very recent attacks in some of the areas we went to. I was strangely not worried about it though, maybe my curiosity got the better of me. T
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