Realities of children of the plantation community and an effort to change it

By T.N. Karunarathne

Wijesinghe, have you forgotten

The day when the factory wheel

Crushed your hand?

Wasn’t it Nathan

Who saved you that day,

With a jasmine like heart,

Giving you blood,

Attending to you at the ward,

And carrying your faeces and urines?

Written by Tudor Amarasena, the above is a timely thought that brings forth the need of the hour: inter racial and religious reconciliation in the Pearl Nation of Sri Lanka. In the final analysis, it indeed is the greatest Dhamma of loving kindness to keep in mind when dealing with the other. As I reflect on these stanzas which have been ingrained in my mind ever since I have read them, I would like to make a note of Fr. Rashmi Madusanka Fernando, SJ a Catholic Jesuit priest and the present director of Satyodaya Centre for Social Research and Encounter Kandy, and how priceless is the service that he and his team at Satyodaya (literally ‘Dawn of Truth’) render to the plantation sector community. This is the community who strive hard to make ends meet and provide basic facilities for their children while producing a national revenue route for us.

Fr. Fernando believes in education as the root for creating achievable and lasting social transformation as well as multipliers of change in the plantation sector. One such effort was the "I am also a leader" leadership skills training program held for the plantation sector students at Satyodaya on 09 January. I have a great appreciation for this effort and the dream that Fr. Fernando has is to expand the type of education from mere paper-pencil based formal qualifications to skill-based proficiencies such as music, dance, drama, computer and communication skills, hairdressing, etc.

Though it may sound quite ordinary, the philosophy with which such programs are conducted at Satyodaya centre in Kandy, about 45 Km away from the nearest plantation communities at Galaha, is worth the effort. Fr. Fernando believes in not only creating dreams in children, but creating big dreams as seeds of the desired social transformation in the plantation sector. Accordingly, he is of the view of creating many opportunities at Satyodaya so that the children in the plantations could come out of their own territories, mingle with people, see the world outside and experience it while they travel and work.

Fr. Fernando often shares how he want to give these children the privilege of managing their own way to the Kandy city, talk to the persons seated next to them in the bus, buy the tickets by themselves, see the city, etc. and in doing so, make their world and as they walk uphill towards the Satyodaya Centre dream their great dreams. 

Also, in that effort I was able to see how these children became attached to Fr. Fernando, whom they address as ‘Sir’. Fr. Fernando in turn treats them with delicious meals in the middle of the training, interacts with them, appreciates their strengths and initiatives, looks into their shortcomings, works at their etiquettes, order and punctuality while instructing them to keep their self-esteem and the respect for the institute high. 

Once I noticed that while bidding goodbye after the event Fr. Fernando got hold of a youth by the extra hair he had grown long and attempted to shorten it while both of them had a laugh on their faces. There I was reminded of his homily given at Hinguarkgoda where I met him first and in which he sang: Kunatupiri Sayure, Punchii Nawak Yana. Naviya boho parissamin, Eya Padawana. (In the stormy sea, there sails a ship. The captain with the utmost care sails it through).

The family is the smallest unit in any society and a place of nurturing which would decide what the child would be in the future. But, given to multiple struggles and absolute lack of facilities available in the plantation sector, there is hardly any room for parents to have their children reach the expected social mobility. It is in this endeavour that Fr. Fernando and Satyodaya team become facilitators of those lost opportunities to the upcountry settlers who by and large are Tamils and Hindu devotees.

Fr. Fernando and his staff visit these peasants in their own estates in Kandy and Kegalle districts in the Central and Sabaragamuwa provinces in Sri Lanka quite periodically. One day he showed us a photograph of a dilapidated toilet of one of the preschools in the plantation. Seeing that, my little daughter asked “Are these washrooms?” To which, Fr. Fernando, sighing deeply about the fact that the plantation children do not have the same privileges that the city children enjoy, said “There are no washrooms there…”

During Christmas time we often find heartfelt lectures on the birth of Jesus, Christmas carols, modern nativity scenes and displays, mammoth Christmas trees, delicious food, and expensive decorations. However, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Fr. Fernando was found busy collecting school stationery from the well to do schools and rich individuals in Colombo and elsewhere in the country to be given to the plantation sector children for the New Year. 

Moreover, together with his team Fr. Fernando had also organised a Christmas program for one of the Buddhist schools in the city to have an experience of singing Christmas carols for the first time ever. While the Satyodaya team was very engaging and entertaining, their loving hospitality was an example of the true humanity which ought to be celebrated at every Christmas.

Fr. Fernando is dedicated not only to action, but he is also effective in getting across his thoughts and visions for humanity that he carries in himself through writings, preaching and composing. Among them the hymn he had composed on behalf of the victims of the bombings on the Easter Sunday 2019 in his own church at Katuwapitya and elsewhere in the country and the recent articles he had written to the Daily FT could be a mirror of what one could see through his life: living a life for others and living in harmony.

This I could witness right from the time I had first met Fr. Fernando at Hingurakgoda when he had just come there as a newly ordained priest. Hingurakgoda, by and large, is a place where the majority of Buddhists live in a symbiotic relationship with their fellow brothers and sisters of other faiths and denominations. I still remember how; Fr. Fernando held the Sunday School Christmas concert in the bana maduwa of the nearby temple.

When I recall that event wherein I myself was an organising team member, I see Fr. Fernando’s effort to live in peace and harmony as rather prophetic as it is also a pressing need of the time in the context of Sri Lanka today. On another occasion, while attending the funeral service of his cook, a Buddhist Upasaka from Kegalle, I could see how bitterly Fr. Fernando wept over the death of his caretaker whom he had dearly addressed as ‘Thaththa’.

The most recent encounter I have had with Fr. Fernando was rehearsing the street theatre to be put up on the day of the 50th anniversary celebration of Satyodaya. The play, titled “Periyasamy's Degree”, is practiced by the plantation students in collaboration with the city-based children such as my daughter. I was very much touched by the role of the “kangani mahaththaya” in the skit who encourages the estate students to study. The street play, according to me, is very powerful in bringing out the following salient points:

People in the plantation sector today, almost after 200 years of their forced migration from India, still remain in the same disadvantaged state.

Providing the basic needs in the plantation sector can never be satiated and the more we satisfy them, the more they remain in the plantations.

Educating children in the plantation community is the key for lasting social transformation and it has long been neglected.

One could always become a mediator, facilitator and multiplier of change through education and Fr. Fernando and Satyodaya team are resolved to do it.

To conclude, it is my joy to recall the scene I have often had and enjoyed with Fr. Fernando. When bidding goodbye, it is always grateful to see how Fr. Fernando gently caresses the head and says lovingly, “Thank you and God bless you putha/dua (son/daughter). Parissamin yanna (Go home safely)!” Are these the characteristics of the priests we have encountered in the past? Fr. Fernando is indeed a father for all these children in the plantation sector. 

Satyodaya celebrated 50 years of its humble service on the 18 February to the plantation sector. I wish Fr. Fernando and the Satyodaya team on a long journey towards the dawn of truth. May their journey lead to the dawn of love, and the enlightenment of thousands of children, as the golden glow of the mountains in the island nation of Sri Lanka.