Jeevani Fernando

“I don’t want my tears to fall on my daughter. She should live a happy and carefree life unlike the one I had”

Raku turns aside and blinks to stall her tears from spilling. Shrapnel during an air raid in 2009 entered her arm just below the sanctified yellow thread (tied to protect her from disease, danger and untimely death) and exited out her chest. Having averted an untimely death, she has big plans for her community.
13 years and a housing grant later, Raku wants just two things in her village to help through the economic crisis: solar power and an investor to start a cottage industry that she will lead and manage. And her daughter after her.
Puthukkadu.
Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka
June 2022

“I lived while he died. But the war shattered my body and my love. When I was a child soldier, I lost my reproductive organs when a hand grenade targeted at me, entered from the rear and exited out of my abdomen. At 15 years, I knew nothing about war and its effects. I was stitched back by the Freedom Movement in makeshift hospitals and took years to recover but was taken apart again when I was sent for rehabilitation by the Army in 2009. I am settled now but with myself”

Sinnakannu turns away shyly when talking about the boy she loved as a teenager and lost to a 30 year ethnic conflict - a tender moment in a life made harsh by a senseless war. Although marriage is considered the ultimate goal for a woman in her community, she stands tall and proud, content with her decisions and concise with what she wants to do – live without misleading anyone and live by herself. No greater survivor.
Puthukkudiyiruppu,
Mullaitivu, Sri Lanka
June 2022

“I worry more about saving my son from the drug menace than keeping my daughter safe. All males are intoxicated or high by noon in my community. That way they don’t feel hunger. But we are.”

Mauna has to keep a watchful eye on her teenage son. When there is no male role model in the home, she tries hard to discipline him and show him the correct path. Addiction to drugs and alcohol is prevalent in this community mainly due to severe economic hardships and a sense of restlessness from years of life as Internally Displaced Persons. Men numb their hunger in this manner but the women and girls remain left to their own methods of finding food. Growing their own crops and rearing animals helps but not during monsoons.
Maanthoppu.
Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
2020

“I had been only two months old when my mother had to run for cover from air raids. She had held me tight against her chest, wondering if her body was strong enough to protect me. I was the youngest and only girl. My five brothers were shielding our mother from either side. That was 12 years ago. Today I am finishing up my advanced level studies. I now travel alone to school and back on my bicycle. My mother still worries about my safety. It seems there’s always a war for girls and women. I want my mother to relax under her mango trees, without worrying. Some day.”

17 year old Asha returns from school to her waiting mother. She wants to collect good memories to tell her own children. Some day.
Villawedduwan, Batticaloa
2021

“Once I had a client who died in my arms. Something with his heart. I didn’t get paid that day. It was scary and I couldn’t report it as I would have got into trouble with the police. They treat us like garbage. I wish I had known whom to call and how to administer CPR then.”

A female commercial sex-worker learns life saving CPR skills at a UN funded training. Education on how to engage emergency health services and how to protect oneself during a pandemic should be made accessible to all communities and for all professions.
Galle, Sri Lanka
2021

“My mother is my role model. I need no other. She held me close and ran for shelter during the war. We lost our father but my mother never gave up. She never stopped looking for him and she never stops to cry”
16 year old Sanjana and her two younger siblings were brought up single-handedly by her mother Surenthira. They have no clue as to where or what happened to her father during the war. But Surenthira kept her spirits up and ensured they had a safe and locakable house to live in and that her children received their education.
Karadiyanaaru, Batticaloa
2021

“Eight of us crammed into a two-roomed tin house yet all eight of us survived the war. I never gave up. As long as I had life, I knew I can take of my family. I can grow crops, rear chicken and goats. There’s very little I can’t do. The war taught us to be happy with little. And every little I have, makes me smile”

55 year old Ushadevi lights up her new home with just her smile. After years of displacement and moving to 7 refugee camps in the Eastern Province, she has finally resettled in a new home. The saree her mother gifted her was the only personal item she could save to put up as a curtain when she moved in.
Villawedduwan
Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
2021

“You think women are weak? That’s what the bombers thought too but I ran the fastest when the shells rained down on us. The men were slow. So slow that I lost my husband and two of my four children. I picked up a fallen man on the way. He was injured but I nursed him back. So you will see more women survived the war than men. Men will only slow you down and most of them are useless”

70 year old Kanakaletchumi, still runs the show with her pointy finger in the remote village of Ulavanoor. She is one of the oldest survivors of the war.
Punnaineeravi in Northern Sri Lanka
2021

"I sometimes lose my mind and become someone else. People get scared of me. But I am the most scared. About myself. All these shrapnel remaining inside my body gives me nightmares. I feel they are burning holes inside of me"
Nearly 200 families with at least one person still living with leftovers of the war are struggling to maintain a normal life in the small village of Puthukkadu in Northern Sri Lanka. The community is desparate to find an industry that will keep them occupied mentally and physically and sustain them financially. Most of these villages are forgotten by the mainstream where wars of other nature still continue.