Hoping to be an Ambassador
By Bhagya Ratnayake
Batticaloa, Eastern Sri Lanka, November 2012: Ishara Hansini, a fifteen year old Sinhalese girl from Ampara – in the east of Sri Lanka - stares at a picture of a Bharatanatyam[1] dancer hung on a bedroom wall. The dancer is wearing a costume with a rich blend of blue, green and gold colors with red and gold color jewelry and her hair is dressed with beautiful while flowers. Ishara stares at the picture every time she is in her room and tries to imitate her posture. She wishes one day she could dance like her and dressed in those colorful clothes and jewelry.
Ishara is a student at Ampara Madawalalanda Maha Vidyalaya, a school that is part of a social cohesion exchange programme promoted by UNICEF and KOICA to bring children from different ethnic, religious and lingual backgrounds together to get to know each.
“I did not get an opportunity to go for any of the exchange visits yet,” explains Ishara. “but I was fascinated by what my friends told me about their experiences. They told me about the beautiful dance items performed by the Tamil students; how they danced the Bharatanatyam and about the clothes they were wearing. My friends got to dance with them and play with them. I was inspired by these stories. My best friend was also a part of this programme and she showed me some dances she saw during the exchange visit. She also showed me pictures of the dance performances and it looked so much like the picture in my room. I aspire to dance Bharatanatyam with them one day.”
UNICEF and KOICA support these exchanges in 24 schools in the north and east of Sri Lankan to bring thousands of children together through sports, cultural exchanges, debates and drama. Teachers and students also hope that what they learn can be communicated to their friends and families outside of the schools as well.
Says Ishara: “From what I have learned, I now want to learn Tamil so I can speak with Tamil children in other schools and learn more about their culture. Today, me and my classmates learned about the different foods different cultures in Sri Lanka eat. We as Sri Lankans are blessed to have such beautiful cultural diversity and I can’t believe I only learned about this now!”
“Initiatives of this nature let us all to aspire to live together in harmony and promote the rights of all children, regardless of ethnicity, religion or region. It makes me want to be an ambassador for peace in my country,” she smiles.
[1] Classical Indian dance form that is popular and nurtured in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu