Under the Youth Exchange program which NAFSO has initiated through YMESOC, since early March 2009 has been organized the Southern Program from 11-13 December.
There were 54 youth attended from Arippu and Silawathurai areas of Mannar district. The souht and east youth were altogether another 50 which counted 110 from South and North together.
The welcome was done on 11th evening at NAFSO which lead to an in-depth discussion over the ethnic issue and the root causes of it. The next day was dedicated to a visit at Colombo in order to North team to visit various places at Colombo. Planeterium, Zoo are the two main places the group visited while skipped the visit to museum due to time constraints.
Today, 13th is the final day which the group organized various diverse activities to strengthen the links they initiated from the visit to Mannar, Nanattam last March.
The inuts from various sectoral activists was very helpful to understand the context of southern working class.
O.Arumugam from HDO[Plantations], Saranapala De Silva of UFL[Workers], Lakriya Nanyakkara of MONLAR[Agriculture and Development], Smapath Sanjeewa of RDDO[Fisheries] were shared the experiences of southern working class.
After the event the group was divided in to 3 groups as Northern, Eastern and Southern to plan out what would be the response of Youth for above mentioned situations.
Also, at the same time the media briefing was organized which youth group attended the media briefing as their own initiative.
By 3.00 the Sadhu Jana Ravaya, meditational music program was conducted by Jayathilake Bandara and the team. This was highly impressed by the whole team irrespective of south or north. Every body shared what they gained through the work. The most important thing is that the youth said, they did not expect such a musical show to create awareness and closeness while singing through the program.
After Sadhu Jana Raavaya work over,the group photograph was taken by the organizers.
Then the team was allowed to present their work plans as the 3 teams divided earlier. There were number of creative ideas came up and evaluated how to implement them.
Then there was a time for people to reflect what they learnt and share the views as written papers.
Finally the certificates were distributed, there was a discussion to continue the program.
Then they were allowed to reflect their original plans to come to South and how they evaluate their situation as of now.Also, allow people to people personal touch to meet the each of the person and share the feelings, appreciation, affirmation of the working together, learning together and growing together as a team.
This was a real touching experience as most of the group members were emotional and so much closer to each other.
The program was ended by 7.00pm with having lot of hopes for the future and future generation for a better country of Sri Lanka.
As the organizers we felt we were beyond our expectations as this was so much successful work as far as we assess it.
Herman Kumara
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