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An Archive Of Hardship: The Tea Plantation Workers Museum

Nearly 200 ago, thousands of Indian Tamils embarked on an arduous journey from their homeland. Many were fleeing the oppressive caste system in search of a better life. They walked mile after weary mile from their villages to ports, where waiting boats and catamarans carried them across the Mannar Gulf to their new home in Ceylon. From Ceylon’s North, they journeyed once more – on foot, battling exhaustion, disease and death, to its hill country, where they began their new lives on coffee plantations. They stayed on there in squalid conditions as indentured labourers, little knowing that decades later, their children and grandchildren would still be toiling in the same hills, dealing with unchanged conditions.

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Spinning To Success: Wheelchair Tennis In Sri Lanka

It is drizzling, and the courts at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association are largely empty. However, in one of them, a trio of people sit under a shelter, waiting for the rain to stop. One of them is Jagath Welikala, a veteran tennis coach who has been coaching for the last three decades. The other two are tennis players – they wield rackets and spin them around as they watch the skies and talk to each other. You would just take them for two regular players waiting for the rain to abate, if not for the two wheelchairs idling in a corner.

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This Museum Is Attempting To Save Sri Lanka’s Traditional Puppetry

We can tell when we have arrived at Balapitiya’s Puppet Museum even without looking at the two large boards flanking the driveway. Marionettes depicting dancers, devils and kings dangle on strings from the large tree in front, and a life-sized wooden watchman wearing a blue uniform stands sentry by the entrance. A colourful jester, reminiscent of Andare, the popular character from local folklore, grins cheekily from a window, while at the ticket counter, another puppet waits patiently for visitors.

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Foot Soldiers: Stories From A Walk For Mental Health

Ranil Thilakaratne tells us this distressing account of a teenager in a small town near Puttalam, who poured kerosene over her body and then set herself alight. It was because she had been raped, and had no one to turn to. “Even after she was brought to the hospital, she still would not tell anyone that she was raped,” he tells us. “Imagine burning yourself because you know that if you go home, you would have to face the usual stigma and rejection from your family and community.”

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The Gardener That Grows His Own Food In The Heart Of Colombo

There are no fantastically trimmed hedges or fancy cherub-infested fountains, but stepping into Ranjit Seneviratne’s garden after navigating the concrete-riddled congested city of Colombo is an experience in itself. This is not your typical well manicured lawn, and you will not find any sweeping flower beds; instead there are arching fruit trees, silent ponds and a haphazard wilderness of thriving greenery.

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This Digital Library Is Preserving Sri Lanka’s Tamil Literary Heritage

Over the course of history, the world has seen countless pieces of its heritage vanish forever with no chance for recovery. Vast contingents of knowledge are continuously being lost- to the passage of time, to natural causes like disasters, insects and mould, and to acts of war and unrest. Every time a palm-leaf manuscript crumbles with age or a mob-driven fire consumes a center of learning, the world loses an irreplaceable part of its past.

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E-Hospital Dompe; Sri Lanka’s First E-Hospital Is Paving The Path For Digital Health In The Country

Seeing a doctor is never fun, but a visit to a hospital can often be an insufferable hassle. More often than not, state hospitals are overcrowded, disorganized and noisy, and there is a good chance that you would have to dig up old medical records, lug them along with you in a bulky folder, and then cool your heels in a sweaty protracted queue for hours on end. Pieces of your medical history and information can get lost along the long line of healthcare providers and healthcare systems, confusing instructions will leave you baffled, and every new healthcare provider you see is going to have to be educated on any existing allergies, previous medication and conditions.

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Down Memory Lane: Bulto, Hoonu Beti And Other Sweets From Bygone Days

A few decades from now, people recalling the magical tastes of childhood would probably talk about Ferrero Rocher, Oreos or the Ambrosial chocolate-covered crepe suzette from that posh cafe in Colombo 07. But way back then, when black and white televisions still existed and bell-bottoms were the in-thing, taste buds were much less demanding, and people reveled in simple, uncomplicated confections to get their sugar fixes.

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