The youth and women are two sectors that come up most in discussion about empowerment and policy-making. A lot of discussion takes place. Yet, there are pertinent complaints that most action plans designed to help do not help.
Sri Lankan youth face the salient issues of education and professional opportunities, sexual and reproductive health rights and representation in decision-making. Safety from violence, economic empowerment and gender equality are some of the major problems Sri Lankan women face.
I spoke with Sheshadri Kottearachchi, a young policy maker, about her views on empowering youth and women. Sheshadri presently works for Oxfam. She has worked for UNICEF and UNDP in the past. In 2017 -18, she was a youth delegate from Sri Lanka to UN General Assembly. She is candid, frank and full of hope about change, as hard as change is.
Sheshadri says her interests in policy developed from her environment and the understanding she gained over the years. She had the opportunity to be the head prefect of her school. There, she worked to lessen the existing communication gap between teachers and students.
“When top levels are distant from others, it affects the productivity of the lower levels. Everybody should have a basic understanding of how things are supposed to work. When we bridge that communication gap, we get a chance to voice our views.”
At university, she studied international relations and English (Honours) concurrently.
“During university, I started studying international relations. The tried and tested theories we learned and my ideas about what empowerment means connected. Empowerment for me is not wholesale, massive changes. It’s about taking small steps instead of going for grand outreach programmes. Empowerment is having confidence in you. It’s about knowing your rights and limitations”.
Sheshadri’s official role in Oxfam is as a communications coordinator. Outside work, she conducts training programs for youth on volunteering, public speaking skills, self-development and empowerment.
“I also use my personal social media platforms to create awareness about topics I am passionate about and real-life case studies covering rural parts of Sri Lanka I visit for fieldwork” she adds. “And I spend a lot of my time speaking to young people”.
Tell us about your tenure as a UN youth delegate :
It was my end goal, the highest achievement in my life I could think of at the time. In fact, for a while I wondered what I should target next since I felt I had reached the pinnacle. It was a very educational experience for me, as well as a great honour. It helped me realise how much capacity Sri Lanka has as a country and sadly, how that capacity is being wasted.”
“Networking and collaborating with other delegates helped me become more open-minded and trained my mind to think ahead. I collaborated with youth delegates from Switzerland, Germany and Georgia to create a working-paper on the improved representation of youth in national policy-making. And trivial as it sounds, I also made sure to always wear the Sri Lankan Osariya (traditional dress of Sri Lankan women) for all the meetings I attended. After a few days of this, fellow delegates would stop and question me about the outfit. A few people asked me whether I was from Sri Lanka. Representation is visual.” she elaborates.
What do you thinks the major challenges in empowering women ?
“First, half of the target audience in empowerment programmes are not the target audience.” She explains that many “experts” conducting these programs are not aware of pivotal issues facing women.
“A lot of the effort is based on a metropolitan understanding of empowerment. Sri Lankan women need economic empowerment – to know how to go to a bank and be able to access bank services. They need the confidence to go to a police station know how to report violence and harassment without feeling shame or insecure”.
“Second, people tend to equate women’s empowerment with men’s disempowerment.” She blames who she calls “pseudo-feminists” for that. “A lot of media attention and space goes to pseudo-feminists and it perpetuates the myth that feminists are ‘man-haters”
“Third, we have a culture in Sri Lanka where women are still only seen as caregivers and nurturers. Men are in positions of power representing women. All these add to the challenge.”
Conservative Culture X Empowerment
I ask her about the youth. What is the biggest challenge in empowering youth?
“The invisible boundaries that Sri Lankan youth set for themselves. Our youth are scared to think outside the box of social conditioning. Most of us still think that if we don’t have 10 As for Ordinary Levels, 3As for Advanced Levels and then a fancy degree, they won’t be able to find ‘safe’ jobs. And sadly, we still exist in a system that supports this chain of requirements. But solutions to problems do not exist in the box of social conditioning. They exist outside of it. There is change – young people are moving towards newer fields of interest, they are taking risks. What they need is a system that supports that.”
I then question her about how the conservative culture of Sri Lanka affects empowerment.
“I don’t think Sri Lanka is a typically conservative country in most ways” she replies, taking me by surprise.
“Before the colonial period, Sri Lanka is well documented to have been very liberal; our people were close to nature, were innovative despite their simple needs. It was only when the colonising European powers took over that we were imposed upon with new Victorian values (which the West has now discarded). Sri Lanka has very strong family ties, which I see as a positive thing. Family is where you learn respect, loyalty, and teamwork. South Asian families give you a sense of belonging, a place you can call your own. But at the same time, South Asian families tend to ‘own’ you, making you duty-bound and obligated to them. But the way I think, learning to deal with family itself is a good lesson for life. It teaches you to negotiate and be diplomatic with the people closest to you.”
I next move on challenges she faces professionally. She is frank and open. “I am 26 years old. Some people seem to take my age as a mark of immaturity and inexperience in professional settings at times. There have been moments were, I have had to face issues a man would never have to. My worst experience is once being introduced as a ‘princess’ to a roomful of government workers in an official setting. But I take my womanhood and youth as positives. I can bring new perspectives to old problems due to my age. I find that people find me more approachable and trust me more during fieldwork because I am a young woman. There are pros and cons to this.”
My final question to Sheshadri is about what is her message to others trying to empower people and young people of her generation.
“For anyone who is out to empower others, make sure your voice is heard. Evolution is not possible if there is no debate or disagreement; so make your voice heard. And remember that when things are the hardest do not back down; for this is the moment right before you are about to succeed.”
“For my generation, what I have to say is ‘if not us, who?’ Who will ensure that the world is better for us? Ours is a generation that has been exposed to a lot of small, but intense wars. Ours is a generation that has witnessed the effects of climate change. Ours is a generation that is experiencing the onset of global warming. We don’t have time to wonder about who will take over these burdens anymore. Realise your responsibilities and do something about it.”
Sheshadri leaves me musing over how positive she is despite the scale of challenges she faces in her work. She is well aware of what she has to tackle yet she is hopeful and positive despite odds.
But then again, how else one could go about changing the world?
