Connecting children best chance for reconciliation: Chandrika

By Safna Malik

Encouraging children of different ethnicities to interact improves reconciliation and gives the opportunity to build sustainable peace in Sri Lanka, Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga said this week.

The Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR) under Ministry of Education initiated the ninth edition of their program titled ‘Sahodara Paasal/Sahodara Paadasalai’ on Monday to mainstream social cohesion and reconciliation among ethnic communities.

The campaign concluded at the Sri Lankan Foundation Institute in Colombo this week in the presence of former President and Chairperson of ONUR Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.

Speaking at the occasion Kumaratunga said, “It’s a diverse country with three main ethnic groups practicing four major religions. If the younger generation is included in long term policies and reconciliation programs such as the ‘Sahodara Paasal/Sahodara Paadasalai’ program we will be able to reform the nation after five years because young people are leading tomorrow’s change today.”

“I have realised there are thousands of Sinhala Buddhist children who have never spoken to a Tamil child, maybe occasionally, due to lack of understanding. This program allows them to perceive their selves to work as a team and to develop a bond with each community.”   

“War generally destroys the whole nation. Conflict between ethnic groups caused this war with tens of millions killed, millions of families separated, the country reduced to rubble, and a huge permanent scar was left in people’s hearts. The damage of wars is way too much that it should never happen under any circumstance. No one should ever initiate a war and claim it is justified. The wounds of war will last at least three generations; that’s why we do such reconciliation programs to heal communities. If we had sat and spoken to each other, if we had shared our thoughts, if we had shared our culture, this war may never have happened,” she added.

ONUR facilitated the Sahodara Paasal/Sahodara Paadasalai program to ensure that general education fosters reconciliation, cross cultural understanding, responsibility and sense of social cohesion among the children of Sri Lanka. This campaign encourages students to develop unity and friendship across communities by assigning them to work as a team with bilingual and trilingual competencies.

This platform led students from each provincial school to display their talents and interest through their exposure to various ranges of activities of learning, listening to guest lectures, movies screening, celebrating religious and cultural festivals, sports, group aesthetic performances, speech, and spiritual activities.

One of the students from the Northern Province said, “This helped us to carve a bridge for a sustainable relationship in both of our provinces. I’ll definitely take my experiences as a message to my other friends in school.”

A student from Eastern Province noted, “I won’t stop here. I will make an effort to influence my schoolmates through our school prefects committee after this program.”

Certificates were distributed to participants by former President Kumaratunga.