Young Sri Lankans working on tea estates find a path out of poverty
| Nanu Oya, Sri Lanka
Madhiyalagan Rameshwaran still remembers how his father’s voice cracked as he told him, “Even if I die, you have to continue education.” That was a decade ago, when Mr. Rameshwaran was 16 years old.
But after his father fell ill, Mr. Rameshwaran dropped out of school to support his family in Carfax Estate in Dickoya, a tea-growing region east of Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo. For a year, he cut grass and planted tea saplings for money before his parents pushed him to go back to school. Mr. Rameshwaran was selected to attend the state university, but he stayed at home to look after his family.
This is a common story among Malaiyaha Tamils living on small settlements scattered across Sri Lanka’s tea-growing hill country. About 200 years ago, British colonizers brought Malaiyaha Tamils’ ancestors from southern India to work on the rainy, wet tea plantations. Although about 600,000 of them – some forcibly – returned to India after Sri Lanka’s independence from the British in 1948, it was only in 2003 that the last remaining Malaiyaha Tamils on the island were granted Sri Lankan citizenship.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onThough Sri Lanka is a leading exporter of tea, young tea estate workers don’t share in the wealth. Education is giving them access to opportunity.
Over the years, plantation ownership transferred from the British to wealthy Sri Lankans, and Sri Lanka emerged as the world’s third-largest exporter of tea. But most Malaiyaha Tamils still have little to no access to land, drinking water, education, housing, or sanitation services. A typical plantation laborer often traverses the hilly, leech-ridden footpaths without shoes, plucking tea and carrying it in a heavy basket on their back – while earning 1,350 Sri Lankan rupees (about $4.60) for a long day’s work. According to the Centre for Poverty Analysis, a think tank, Malaiyaha Tamils are the most economically deprived group in Sri Lanka, with 44% of the community living in abject poverty.
After British national Tim Pare and his wife, Yasmene Shah, witnessed the group’s plight during their honeymoon in Sri Lanka in 2007, they vowed to do something. They eventually established Tea Leaf Trust, which now runs five schools in Sri Lanka, including one in Nanu Oya, a tea-growing town that’s known for tourism. The nonprofit’s programs range from English lessons to teacher education and entrepreneurial training for women. Its schools run a one-year diploma program free to young people ages 18 to 26, teaching English skills, information technology tools, and public speaking. The program aims to make young people from tea estates more employable and to help them find work off the estates if they desire, while also making them leaders of change in their communities.
“The solutions aren’t coming from the white guy here,” Mr. Pare says. “They’re not coming from the politicians. They’re not coming from the tea estates.” He notes that governmental and nongovernmental organizations work to empower other regions of Sri Lanka, but tea estate communities get far less support.
Tea Leaf Trust has provided education to more than 57,000 young people, while over 2,600 students have graduated from its main diploma program. Eighty percent of graduates have gone on to further their education, become entrepreneurs, or find employment in nonprofits, hotels, and hospitals, says Mr. Pare.
Mr. Rameshwaran is one of those graduates. Soon after completing the program in 2018, he was employed at Tea Leaf Trust in the finance division. Last year, he joined the luxury property group Teardrop Hotels, where he is a finance and administrative executive.
A promise to return
Eighteen years ago, when Mr. Pare first came to Sri Lanka, he had no dream of running a nonprofit. During their honeymoon at a tea estate hotel, Mr. Pare and Ms. Shah saw the hotel collect donations from the guests to paint the drab roofs of the homes of tea estate workers. “So the guests in this luxury hotel have a lovely stay, and they don’t have to worry about the poor people looking all dirty in front of them,” Mr. Pare says. “But there was no benefit for the community.”
The hotel manager said they couldn’t employ people from the estate, as they didn’t know English, Mr. Pare explains.
“I told him, ‘Why don’t you take the donations, employ an English teacher, teach the community English, and run your whole hotel from people in the community?’ And he told me, ‘You’re British. This is your fault. You do it,’” Mr. Pare says.
Mr. Pare and Ms. Shah left the hotel a few hours later, but they promised each other they would return. In 2009, the couple relocated to Maskeliya, a remote tea-country town, and taught English at a nonprofit-run school. The following year, they established Tea Leaf Trust’s first school in the town and recruited two of their students – Yadharshini Selveraj and Sutharshan Visventhan – as teachers. Both Ms. Selveraj and Mr. Visventhan completed further education and now work as Tea Leaf Trust’s country director and deputy country director, respectively. They head a 67-member staff – all graduates of the diploma program.
“It feels amazing to see so many young people having opportunities that we did not have back then,” Ms. Selveraj says. “Sometimes I’m having a bad day, and then I get a text from a student that they got a job. And I feel very happy.”
“Dream and thrive”
Nadarajah Jenita’s eyes tear up when she discusses losing her administrative job at a nonprofit near her home in Maskeliya. But her life changed when she joined the diploma program at Tea Leaf Trust in 2010.
After graduation, Ms. Jenita completed a teacher education program with Tea Leaf Trust, signed on as an educator with the nonprofit, and climbed the ladder to become a school principal at Tea Leaf Trust Center in Maskeliya. She now runs a preschool and is pursuing a diploma in teaching students with learning disabilities at the Open University of Sri Lanka. She considers Tea Leaf Trust a “gift” to her community. “I felt I was recognized and valued,” she says.
Ms. Jenita’s sister also studied at Tea Leaf Trust and migrated to the Philippines for work. They pooled their money to build a cement-walled house for their parents. “Tea Leaf helps many young girls from tea estates to dream and thrive,” Ms. Jenita says.
Henry Fitch, chief executive of Teardrop Hotels, employs several graduates of Tea Leaf Trust’s diploma program. He views the nonprofit’s work as a lifeline for young people. “The teachers often take on dual roles as educators and counselors to their students, many of whom deal with the profound effects of trauma linked to alcoholism and domestic abuse,” he notes.
Back at his workplace in Dickoya, Mr. Rameshwaran says Tea Leaf Trust taught him the importance of giving back. “Whatever it is we get, we should give others,” he says. “We studied at Tea Leaf, so now, we have the chance to teach younger people.”
