By Emma Cutler
As part of my research on environmental conservation, sustainable development, and organic agriculture in Sri Lanka, I spent two weeks at the Sevalanka Islander Center. This center, run by the development organization Sevalanka, which is dedicated to enhancing the capacity of rural communities, consists of a 100-acre organic farm, residential training facilities, and conserved forest and grasslands. I came to the Islander Center planning to study the environmental history of the area and how the activities that take place there affect the surrounding ecosystems. My initial research questions were along the lines of:
•How has the landscape changed since the development of the Islander Center?
•How do the programs at the Islander Center promote environmental conservation?
•What are the impacts of the center’s activities on local water, soil, and biodiversity?
I quickly realized, however, that although answering these environmental questions would be interesting and informative for my work on sustainability in Sri Lanka, the lessons that I could learn from the people there would be equally, if not more, valuable.
Sevalanka runs many leadership and capacity building programs at the Islander Center, bringing together people from all parts of the country. One of the most prominent of these programs is a three-month course for rural youth, ages 16-23. The students participate in classroom and practical sessions on leadership, business management, presentation, computer, and non-violent communication skills, as well as learning about gender and environmental issues and organic farming. The program culminates with each student writing a proposal for a project addressing a livelihood issue in his or her home community.
When I arrived, the current batch of youth participants had completed about half of their three-month program. At first, my contact with them was limited to a couple of hours every day working in the garden and sometimes at meals, but over the course of my two weeks, I began to spend more time getting to know the students and learning about the program. I made a point to eat at the same time as them, played games with them in the evenings, and joined them for their nightly program of sharing songs, dances, and stories with each other. I still had time, when they were in classroom sessions, to work on the environmental research I had planned to do, but I also grew more interested in learning about youth development and the connections between environmental sustainability and capacity building in rural communities. In addition to my original research goals, I learned about the issues that young people perceive as important for creating a better future, something I could not have learned by studying only the land. This inspired me to make my research more relevant to the social issues connected with environmental sustainability. Furthermore, it was the relationships I built that made my time at the Islander Center truly enjoyable and meaningful.
One way that the Islander Center is different from other places I have visited for my research is that the people there are not part of one, long-established community. Everybody I met came from a different place and had a different story. Many did not even speak the same language and could not carry out full conversations with each other. I often joined the students for their nightly program, which always began with prayers for each of the four major religions practiced in Sri Lanka. Following the prayers, individuals would share small pieces of their own culture.
UNEXPECTED LESSONS