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nikey11! wrote:I was hoping someone would be willing to give my PS a read. Please feel free to be brutally honest. I could use all the help I can get.Hello nikey11!,
My family is among the three million Tamil migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers who have fled Sri Lanka since the 1983 anti-Tamil riots. Decades of institutionalized racism and violence against the nation’s Tamil minority erupted into a separatist civil war that lasted thirty years (1983-2009) and claimed millions of lives. My family’s struggle for survival had a profound influence on my educational pursuits and inspired my decision to pursue a degree in Health and Human Rights Law.
In 1995, my family was displaced from our home in the northern province of Jaffna by a devastating military attack on our village. Fearing for our lives, my parents abandoned their home, jobs, and families. My mother packed everything we could carry and left everything else behind, from precious family heirlooms to irreplaceable photographs. As refugees we traveled from village to village, securing rides from passing vehicles and spending nights with distant relatives and generous family friends. After weeks on the move, we finally settled in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, over 300 miles from our home.
When I was three years old, my father left for a teaching job in Saudi Arabia. Eventually, he saved enough money to buy my mother and me tickets to join him. Shortly after my seventh birthday, my parents informed me that we would again be moving, this time to America. In America, they explained, everyone had religious and political freedom, educational opportunity, and a fighting chance for a better life. Words could not describe my excitement.
We arrived in New York on February 2, 2002, and within a week, I was enrolled in public school. My parents encouraged my love of learning and emphasized the value of a good education. Every evening after school my mother took my brother and me to the public library where we spent hours poring over book after book. As a teenager, I developed an interest in justice and the law after joining my local Youth Court program: a juvenile delinquency prevention program in partnership with the New York State family court system.
I went on to join my university’s Judicial Council, a student hearing board commissioned by the Dean of Students to address alleged violations of student conduct and academic honesty policies, of which now I serve as the Chief Justice. As a freshman, I dabbled in a wide variety of courses from multivariable calculus to philosophy, eventually settling on political science. My family’s struggle for survival fueled my interest in learning about ethnic politics and the disenfranchisement of minority groups, so I took up courses in history and public health.
Before long I began asking my mother about taking a trip to Sri Lanka. “I want to see your grandmother’s house and our village,” I begged. “It’s not safe yet, darling. Be patient … one day you will,” my mother would answer.
That day finally arrived on June 30, 2015, when with a grant from my university, I spent the summer in Sri Lanka working for Suriya Women’s Development Centre, a women’s empowerment organization in Uranee, Batticaloa. The Centre was established in response to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of women and children during the civil war. The women of Suriya describe themselves as a sisterhood of activists dedicated to helping women and girls cope with devastating loss and rebuild their communities.
The organization supports health clinics, leads restorative and peace-building workshops, and sponsors economic development projects. At Suriya’s Crisis Center, a temporary shelter and rehabilitation center for pregnant women and recent mothers, I observed several key intersections between public health and the law. As a consequence of the civil war, Sri Lanka suffers from an inadequate public health infrastructure and significant gaps in access to quality medical care, specifically mental health services and reproductive health education for women and girls. Although non-government organizations, like Suriya, have been working tirelessly to close these gaps, funding is scarce and resources are extremely limited.
In partnership with the Human Rights Commission, the Centre also offers emergency support and legal aid counseling to women facing domestic and gender-based violence. During my time at Suriya, I worked closely with S, one of the legal aid counselors. Like most of the women in the organization, S did not have a law degree. She came to Suriya in search of help and discovered her passion for social justice. Through her perseverance S has learned the ins and outs of the Sri Lankan justice system and the local courts. Using her knowledge of the law, she educates and empowers local women to challenge gender-based discrimination and violence in their homes and their communities.
From the women of Suriya, I learned about restorative justice and the power of the law to significantly alter women’s lives. The work of international, legal, and human rights organizations is only beginning in Sri Lanka and other nations affected by ethnic tensions and a history of minority disenfranchisement. I firmly believe a legal education, with a focus in Health and Human Rights, will help me join this fight for equal rights.
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