Diaspora (Sri Lanka)

Six young cross-party Sri Lankan parliamentarians and political representatives visited the UK from 25th February to 5th March 2013 to explore its governance and democracy models, and continue their engagement with UK-based diaspora.

Peacebuilding organisation International Alert yesterday published a new report, Voices across borders, which calls for greater engagement between the UK government and diaspora communities, in order to improve peace and development.

‘We should go and see David Cameron about this!’, was the conclusion of the Lancashire youth group taking part in our project, “Promoting Positive Voices in Diaspora Communities”.

In November, International Alert organised a visit of four doctors from the British Sri Lankan diaspora community to Sri Lanka, to learn about the country’s healthcare challenges.

In October, our partner organisation Voices for Reconciliation brought together people from Sri Lanka’s diaspora communities to talk about how their personal identities influence their opinions and understanding of Sri Lanka’s history, and how such identities are shaping the country’s post-war future.

Sri Lankan parliamentarians Honourable Vasantha Senanayake MP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party), Honourable Harin Fernando MP (United National Party), and Mr Raghu Balanchandran (Tamil National Alliance) visited the UK from 25th-31st October 2012 in the second of a series of dialogues between this cross-party group of Sri Lankan parliamentarians, political activists and Sri Lankan diaspora communities in the UK. 

On 28th September, one of our partner organisations Voices for Reconciliation (VFR) took part in a workshop with young people from Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan diaspora community in the UK.

This article is written by Dominic Perera. Dominic is currently working with International Alert in the Sri Lanka team, based in London. Dominic also facilitates dialogue amongst second-generation Sri Lankan communities in the UK, working to strengthen inter-community relations and actively promote positive diaspora engagement with Sri Lanka.

Nilmini Herath – a member of the delegation of young British Sri Lankan professionals who visited Sri Lanka in March as part of International Alert and the Royal Commonwealth Society's Diaspora Dialogues initiative – shares her experience of speaking in the UK Parliament.

From Alert's 2011 Annual Report

"We arrived as Sinhalese and Tamils, but we leave as Sri Lankans".
Participant in diaspora event

In early March 2012, seven British Sri Lankans and two British MPs met communities in Puttalam, Anuradhapura, Vavuniya, Killinochchi and Trincomalee in Sri Lanka to improve the understanding of British-Sri Lankan communities in the UK of the rapidly changing circumstances in Sri Lanka following the end of the war.

A group of emerging political leaders from Sri Lanka’s Parliament and civil society have been spending the week here in the UK as part of a programme aimed at fostering reconciliation in that country’s progress toward peaceful development following the end of the three decade civil war there in 2009.

In January 2011 International Alert teamed up with the Royal Commonwealth Society to take eight British youth of Sri Lankan heritage, and from both Tamil and Sinhalese backgrounds, to Sri Lanka as part of our Sri Lankan programme and our work with Sri Lankan diaspora who live in the UK.