Transforming the plantation landscape

By Fr. Rashmi M. Fernando

It is indeed a significant milestone that Satyodaya Centre for Social Research and Encounter in February, celebrated 50 years of its service to the plantation sector in Sri Lanka. I deem it to be an honour to be the active director of the Centre at the time of its Golden Jubilee. 

History

First and foremost, it is with immense gratitude that I remember the great stalwarts who had prepared the ground, sown the seed of Satyodaya in 1972, and stewarded it to grow and become what it is today. The first among them are the founder Fathers of Satyodaya, late Fr. Paul Caspersz, SJ, and late Rt. Rev. Dr. Leo Nanayakkara, the then Bishop of Badulla, the theoria-praxis duo who put both research and encounter together in a harmonious whole at Satyodaya to uplift the living conditions of the plantation peasants in Sri Lanka. 

To mention a few among them, creating local leaderships, launching women’s self-help and empowerment activities; establishing preschools, village gathering halls (praja shala), providing purified water, rope-pump wells, and sanitary facilities, home kitchens, and roofs; and introducing leadership training programs, study, exchange and excursion programs, village libraries, vocational training, scholarship schemes, language, and computer skills learning for students, etc. 

It was these invaluable services that had won the ‘Visva Prasadhini’ Sirimavo Bandaranayake Award in 1995 and various other achievement awards to Satyodaya Centre during the past 50 years. It is with equal reverence I remember the former Directors of the Centre whose awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism have paved the way for Satyodaya to become what it is today. 

Overcoming the obstacles in educating the poor

The service of Satyodaya in the plantation sector during the past 50 years (1972-2022) was not at all an easy affair. It has evolved over the years and it still does. There had been epochs where thorns were banaler than flowers. While there were epochs when external thorns had caused us hurts, there were some other times when our own internal thorns had torn us to bleed. Despite them all, the followers always blossomed as beautiful as ever, and significantly different from others in the field. 

Among the sundry achievements it has had since its inception in 1972, one of the most concrete, durable, and structural changes that Satyodaya could arrive at over the past half-century years was that it could prioritise its mission towards transforming the plantation landscape in the Central Province of Sri Lanka. 

Accordingly dawned the educational program of Satyodaya, known as ‘Overcoming the Obstacles in Educating the Poor’ (OOEP Program) catering currently to 12 plantation divisions in the Central and Sabaragamuwa Provinces of Sri Lanka (10 in Kandy district and 2 in Kegalle district), and has established (currently at 8 out of these 12 divisions) a preschool with one or two trained pre-school teachers, a Study Centre (currently at 11 out of 12 divisions) with one or two computers, a mini library, study tables-chairs, writing boards, etc., and a trained social worker to frequent and facilitate them periodically. 

The OOEP program is arranged in such a way that a child first joins the preschool, then the children’s club (from Grade 1 to 13), then the youth association, and finally the Community Based Organisation (CBO) in the plantation. At each of these junctures, there is a series of programs conducted periodically and consistently to motivate, update, and empower them to transform their oppressive social structures. Among them are Pre-school Teacher Training Program (done twice a year), Tribasha (Sinhala-Tamil-English) Study program for Children, Leadership Training Program (done four times a year), additional classes for school subjects, GCE O/L, and A/L, Scholarship Grants, CBO Leaders’ Program, etc. 

At present, we have 143 preschoolers, 320 children from grades 1 to 5, and 425 children from grades 5 to 13 as registered beneficiaries of the Satyodaya OOEP program. As Satyodaya celebrated 50 years of its service in February, we are proud to say that we have 53 students who have either secured government university entrance or pursue higher education and vocational training in both private and government institutes as a result of the aid received from the OOEP program of Satyodaya. 

Today’s context

It is quite unfortunate that in a country like Sri Lanka, education is by and large evaluated in terms of paper qualifications and passing rates of government exams which are primarily more paper-pencil-based than skill-oriented. However, not everybody is capable of passing those exams and, unfortunately, that number is alarmingly big. Worst still is the fact that those who have formal qualifications do not have chances for fair job opportunities according to their aptitudes and neither can they contribute adequately to the upliftment of society. 

While the dignity of labour in Sri Lanka is still less or null for the skill-based professions as compared to paper-qualified personnel, one has to be the best to survive in one’s domain of expertise. One of the uprising consequences of this situation is that there is an increasingly high demand, for better or for worse, for voluntary outsourcing of one’s resources to the international job market. It has indeed been the trend of the new normal era which perhaps was forced dawned with the spread of the COVID-19. 

Therefore, the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Satyodaya’s service to the plantation sector falls at a decisive time in the history of the world for a good number of reasons. First of all, it is the 500th year (1522-2022) of the conversion of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Given that and the Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs) of the Society of Jesus promulgated in 2019, namely Showing the way to God, Walking with the Excluded, Journeying with Youth, and Caring for our Common Home, it is also the time that Sri Lanka Province of the Society of Jesus is inclined towards revisiting its roots and restructuring its Province Apostolic Priorities (PAP). 

Moreover, it is also the time that the Order of the Sylvestro Benedictine monks celebrates 175 years of its service in the island nation of Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the 50th anniversary of Satyodaya has fallen during the time that the universal and apostolic Church has already embarked on its two-year-long synodal journey (2021-2023) marked by communion, participation, and mission. It is also the time that the covid-19 pandemic has, by and large, become the conditioning factor of almost every activity in the world be it personal or communal, mini-scale or mega-level. 

Avenue

Celebrating 50 years of its historic journey is nevertheless an opportunity to revise its Missio Dei (Mission of God) to be better effective in transforming the planation landscape in the next 50 years to come. Therefore, keeping in mind particularly the charisms of the said two Major Religious Orders of the Catholic Church, the Jesuits and the OSBs, the very Congregations of the founder-duos of Satyodaya, it is my fervent hope, therefore, to transcend the scope of the OOEP program of Satyodaya beyond the formal boundaries of education to skills-based training understood in terms of music, dancing, theatre, hairdressing, information and communication skills, etc., in the years to come. 

This is done with the belief that, in life, the more worth, value, and recognition one acquires, the more transformative he or she becomes, and better agents and multipliers they be in transmitting that transformation in society. It is my humble plea, therefore, that we put our hands and heads together in transforming the plantation landscape in Sri Lanka because the need is so vast out there in the field but the resources are few, and together we can make more difference than what is separately achieved.  

(The author is the Director of Satyodaya Centre for Social Research and Encounter in Kandy.)