13. mit Sri

Whats your Name?

Sritharan or Sri

How old are you?

26

Where do you come from?

From Sri Lanka, now staying in Erode. Lastly I worked in Vembar.

What is your family like?

My family have 4 members. My junger brother, me and my parents. 2 others are married and life in Chennai. We migrated 6 years ago from Sri Lanka, because the Tamilien struggle with the Sri Lankan government. (More information)

So now we life in a Sri Lankan refuges camp in Tamil Nadu.

What is your profession?:

I successfully did my Master of Social Work in Madurai. For the last year I had worked in PAD. I was working for Kids in the surrounding of Vembar.

Now I search for a development-orientated Job in Chennai.

Why you want to do development work?

India is a developing country, thus it has big need of development activities and education for the poor. Not everybody is reached by our development yet.

I like the appreciation you get by working directly with people. Only in the social jobs you have it, as otherwise you work for salary. For you. I like the personal touch with people. They get happy, I am happy.

The date I decided to study social work was: 21^st May 2006 in Sri Lanka.

That day government forces broke an no fire agreement of 2002 with LTTE (Liberation for Tiger of Tamil Eelam). My village got totally bombed by flights and rockets. 600 people died in our area. 3 days we only searched for safety places. We moved 78 kilometers running from safe to safe place. I lost relatives and many friends, one died in front of me. Finally we went to Maanar and went by illegal boat (arround 1400€ for 11 people) to Tamil Nadu.

Why the social work? I don´t like the bloody war. Everybody is affected by body and mind. But Everybody is equal. I want to talk to people. Why we fight for land? I want a legal struggle. See what I can do in the I high position in field work and one day in the UN.

Where did Lukas meet Sri?

Sri has been my college. He just left PAD in the beginning of April. He has been very supportive and we became friends.