The Community

I remember our bike trips when we were youngsters. There were four to six people in two or three motorbikes. It was fun. For a moment I was nostalgic because again I’m having a similar experience. I was riding my bike and two of my friends: Edwin and Thamilchelvan.  Edwin is my friend who connect me with all the people here and since the language barrier, Thamilchelvan agreed to join our journeys and act as the translator. Beyond that they became two good friends to me with an extensive knowledge on the region and its people.

The Parantan-Mulativu road is stretched through the paddy fields and thicket scrub patches here and there. Most of the paddy fields I passed were ploughed and the farmers were waiting for the rain. As people told me, there weren’t substantial rain to the region since January. And I could imagine the hardship the situation poses as the main livelihood of people from small towns such as Visuvamadu is wet-rice agriculture.  But they have prepared their paddy fields for the next season and waiting for the grace of the rain to cultivate them.

Visuvamadu is located by the Parantan-Mulativu road and approximately 28kilometers from Kilinochchi town. Visuvamadu kulam or the Visuvamadu tank is located nearby; hence the name of the town is Visuvamadu. Although a small town with the population of 2250 voters, the people of Visuvamadu have formed a rich community. We are visiting to the community center of Visuvamadu and one of the female representatives of people in Pudukuduirippu divisional council - Nandakumar Kedini was waiting there to meet us.

I’ve seen many things around the country but what I have seen here amazed me completely. It was a little community center with a cluster of three small buildings tightly packed together and I could see another building under construction. One building is occupied with a computer lab and when I take a peek, I could see kids occupied with them. I expected to see kids playing around with paint software but those kids were actually learning to use much advance vector graphic software as far as I could see. The second smaller building was occupied with a dancing class. It was as colorful as a range of flowers. There were little girls dancing to a song and their teacher: a young girl was correcting their steps. The third and the largest building was a library. The open parlor had nothing but few long benches, several standing reading tables with newspapers and few book cupboards. And a collection of trophies won by the youths of the community center were sitting on a corner proudly. But the real treasure was hidden in a backroom of the library: a collection of thousands of English and Tamil books under various categories! With a single glance I could say that some of the titles are pretty valuable.

“This community center is a busy place at any given time. Because kids, youths and adults are coming to read newspapers, to read books, to the computer lab or for dancing classes. And that harmony is visible in any public work. Let’s say we have passed a budget to reconstruct or develop a road. Even though the work is happening through a contract, people would come and help with the free labor. That’s how we are tight as a community here.” Kedini explained to me.

“We have a strong Praja Mandala here and the most important change happened after forming that was educating people regarding the local government bodies, the administrative work and how villagers should contribute to the development work, problem solving and administration. Before that the Pradeshiya Sabha was just another word for us. But now we know the purview of that authority and how to use that for the betterment of our villages.  That’s a huge success.”

Kedini, as a retired government servant, the treasurer of the community center and one of the 5 female councilors of Pudukuduirippu divisional council knows her people well. She claimed that before the workshops done by Chrysalis on administrative work, accounting and more, she never had an intention to enter the politics and serve the people.

“We have many more works to be done. The tank needs some reconstruction work and there are rivulets and canals needs to be reconstructed. Right now we have two weekly markets for both Kilinochchi and Mulativu districts in both sides of the road but we are discussing to make it one and make it better. There are roads to develop and the water issue is there to resolve. We can get those works done if we continue to work like this” Kedini is optimistic for the future.

“The best thing about the Praja Mandala and our community center is that we have no divisions based on politics. When I contested for the Pradeshiya Sabha, the president of the community center was an opposite side candidate. But we never had differences in community work and we still work together. That’s how you move forward as a community.”

Kedini is a bright, warm lady and I was pretty sure with everything I’ve seen that she and her community will develop their village. Her husband is an owner of jewelry shops of the area and he cordially invited me to visit them again. And he asked whether I like the country special Palmyra toddy! I will definitely miss those people till I come back and I will definitely come back, I promised myself.

After bidding adieu temporarily we were heading further towards Mulativu. And like I said before, the straight road, the vast clear blue sky and the warmth of the moments I had with the community made my journey less lonely.