Oxfam Community Aid Abroad is supporting Tamil and Sinhalese communities in Sri Lanka to work together to overcome decades of conflict. By Lisa Vettori.

Conflict is an unfortunate characteristic of everyday life in Sri Lanka. Two decades of bloody civil war have claimed an estimated 60,000 lives and forced nearly 600,000 displaced people into refugee camps in India and parts of Sri Lanka. As with most conflicts, the burden of war falls disproportionably on the poor.

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad works to promote peace in Sri Lanka by taking a multifaceted approach. We aim to bring Sinhalese and Tamil communities together so that they can understand each other and work together to deal with the conflict that is affecting their lives. We work with Tamils and Sinhalese, as well as Muslim communities, focusing our work in border areas which are ethnically mixed.

Language is an important tool to promote peace. When people can talk to each other, they are more likely to understand each other. Our partner JSSK aims to build ethnic reconciliation by conducting Sinhala classes in every Tamil village and Tamil classes in every Sinhala village. "I think that understanding language helps people to understand each other," says 21-year-old Logeswary, who is teaching Tamil to students in the Samaghi community. "Many of the government officials who come here don't speak Tamil so the Tamil people are unable to talk to them and tell them their needs. If we learn each other's language, we will be able to communicate and understand each other. This will contribute to peace."

Bilingual workshops and training programs also bring communities together to discuss the causes of the conflict and ways to overcome it. Meeting face to face, both Tamil and Sinhala people have been able to listen to each other's concerns and find solutions together.

Times have been hard in the Dimbulagala and Welikanda areas of the north-west province. The conflict resulted in people being shot in their paddy fields, while others were arrested on suspicion and tortured. Due to fear, many people abandoned their fields - and therefore their primary source of income and food.

People have had to mortgage their lands, take expensive loans and attempt to earn a living through the risky sale of illegal alcohol.

Now, after ten years of conflict, our work has helped people to start cultivating their lands again. Fear and suspicion have been reduced, and communities have come together to work as they did in the past.

Theivani, a Tamil woman who is part of a village committee, says being part of a group is very helpful as there are "Sinhala speaking people in the group with whom I can go to the government officers and get work done." Theivani goes on to explain that because of the group, she has been able to negotiate with government authorities to obtain birth certificates for her youngest daughter - many Tamil children do not have birth certificates, and without them, they are unable to attend school.

Her ten-year-old daughter Jinaranjani is now attending school. Members of the group also help her with gardening, rice cultivation and construction work. "We help each other. They helped me with my home garden . repairs to my house ... I also help them," she says.

In many of the communities where Oxfam Community Aid Abroad works, people have been forced to sell their produce through 'middlemen' (people who take the produce to larger markets), who pay communities very little. Middlemen also keep families in debt by loaning them money for agricultural inputs and machinery at very high rates. To help producers overcome these hurdles, we are bringing together communities across many regions in Sri Lanka in a marketing network where they can sell amongst themselves and to others outside the network. More than 1,300 people across six districts are now involved in the network, including paddy and vegetable cultivators, fisherfolk, basket weavers and tea pickers.

Mangalika Jayalath from the Samaghi community contributes pepper and goraka (which is like tamarind) to the marketing network through her village committee, of which she is Chair. She says that through the cooperative, she is able to obtain more money per kilogram than she would obtain if she sold through the village trader. She also doesn't need to borrow money from middlemen anymore, as she is able to take low interest loans through the loan group created by her village committee.

"Earlier we used to get indebted ... now we are not indebted," says Mangalika. "We are coordinating and buying in bulk and getting most of the villages involved, so we are able to get items for a lower price. At the same time, we are getting a market for our products." Tamils from the East sell dry fish while Sinhalese from Kegalle exchange it for pepper, tea and cinnamon. Such mutually benefiting exchanges not only increase incomes but also help to strengthen ethnic ties across regions. The two communities are beginning to experience solidarity and seeing they have a lot in common.

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad is supporting 'peace exchanges', where Tamil and Sinhalese people from different areas spend two months in each other's homes. At first, participants have been nervous and unsure what to expect. However, by the end of the exchange, the fear and suspicion they had about each other disappears.

Saman Bandara, who is Sinhalese, spent two months with a Tamil family. He met neighbours, attended a funeral, went to their temple and helped with daily chores and work. Since the exchange, he has visited the community several times and continues to establish new connections. He is taking Tamil classes organised by Oxfam Community Aid Abroad and speaks about his positive experience in his own village, which reinforces positive attitudes.

Language classes, marketing initiatives, cultural exchanges, and working in mixed communities are just a few of the ways Oxfam Community Aid Abroad is building peace in Sri Lanka. Step by step, these programs are overcoming conflict and giving communities hope for the future.

The conflict essentially involves the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) - also known as the Tamil Tigers - and the majority Sinhalese government. The LTTE is calling for Tamil selfdetermination and an independent Tamil state, while the government is firm in maintaining a unified state. A ceasefire agreement was signed in early 2002, resulting in two years of relative peace, however, the peace negotiations stalled in April of this year. Sri Lanka's conflict is complex, involving issues such as language, religion, and historical memories of tensions and conflicts. Prior to 1983, Tamils and Sinhalese communities had extensive economic and social links, however these links have been broken by the conflict, and their attitudes towards each other have been influenced by political propaganda and the parties to the conflict who have strived hard to keep the communities separate.