Week 1 in Batticaloa

We write now at the end of our first week in Batticaloa with Ocean Stars Lanka. Here are some reflections on the first week:

Zeddy:

It was great to meet the Ocean Stars Lanka team on Monday, who have been very welcoming and made me feel at home in Batticaloa. The week has been busy and I'm now looking forward to a restful weekend!

A highlight for me this week was meeting the women learning to sew as part of the Hope House 2 community project in Karavetty. I interviewed the women with our translator Gawsh, to create a CV+ for each attendee. The women meet from 9am - 3pm on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and we will be doing business / finance skills workshops with the women in the next few months. My initial impression was that the women were quite shy, the majority were under the age of 20, and somewhat lacked the entrepreneurial spirit that I am familiar with in Kenya. Although some expressed an interest in business, others had no real understanding. That said, I am confident we can develop skills such as simple record-keeping, idea generation and testing business ideas with the women. I believe that by making the concept of business accessible and understandable, we may 'sew the seed' of opportunity. Exciting few weeks ahead!

Another interesting experience was the contrast between children in pre-schools where we visited to collect data for the Ocean Stars Community and Livelihoods Study by interviewing parents of pre-school children . Before the interviews we met with the pre-school children, the first pre-school (Thirukovil 1) children were very shy with a few children crying, however the second (Karavetty) all said 'MORNING' as we arrived and performed songs in front of us!

I am also learning that Sri Lankan time is very similar to Kenyan time...(if you know what I mean!)

Dan:

Great to be back in Batti, and work with the OSL team again...and this time for 3 months! It's been a very tiring week, including a school trip to Trinco on Tuesday (with a 4.30am wake up!), travelling to pre-schools via tuc-tuc and working in the OSL office in the afternoon.

I have really enjoyed the interviews with parents of pre-school children for the Communities and Livelihoods Study. There is always a slight apprehension when we arrive at a pre-school, wondering whether there will be parents available and willing to speak to us! Thankfully we have been able to conduct 13 interviews, each taking 15-20 mins. I really get the sense that the parents involved enjoy the process, where they are simply talking about their lives. We ask questions such as: 'Tell me about your daily routine' and 'What does education mean to you' and have been getting some really interesting insights into the dynamics and belief systems of the communities in which OST operates. We have now collected data from 5 out of 16 OST pre-school locations, 11 more to go!

Looking forward to what the next few months bring! It's been two weeks now in SL, already feels like 2 months!

Stay tuned!

DB & ZK