On the other hand, when visiting other villages, I recognized that there were some young people in their homes even in the day time. They explained their present situation as follows: “the war deprived us of our education opportunity. We do not have enough skills to work. After the war, the government and international organizations supported our lives. However, now, almost 10 years passed, so they withdrew their projects from here. Usually, we do work as day laborers, but do not have enough work to live.”
This experience gave me an important keyword in supporting local people. That is “sustainability.” To build sustainable peace, we need to provide short-term and long-term projects: Promoting the regional industry and creating stable working opportunities are urgent for local people. Certainly, Vavuniya was underdeveloped because of the center of the civil war as well as the hard climate of the dry zone, and the international support to the areas was also stopped.
From those experiences, I realized that it is necessary to create a foundation that can gather people who have the same spirit for peace and build a sustainable network with international and domestic partners. Therfore, I established the non-profit organization, Mother Land Lanka, named after our hope that Sri Lanka becomes a peaceful motherland for everyone who is born and lives in the country. Our MLL was registered as NPO in Sri Lanka in 2020, and act for Sri Lankan sustainable peace.