Shannon Simpson ANT 160-229 The Young and the Rest of Us

Whitney Young, Jr. said, The hardest work in the world is being out of work. This is proven to be true in the article that I chose for my Paper, Like a Frog in a Well: Young Peoples views of the Future Expressed in Two Collaborative Research Projects in Sri Lanka, by Ann E Kingsolver. In this article, the problem of the increasing unemployment rate of young people is addressed. Multiple people are interviewed and many options are presented by different people to purpose a possible solution. This research was conducted during the 2002-2006 cease-fires. For young Sri Lankans, this war was a lifetime ethics war. This article brings together a discussion combing the concern of the unemployment rate from the view point of the young people themselves, and the other side coming from the employers of the tea estates. Kingsolver had done research in the past, comparing the tea industry with the tobacco industry. Being no stranger to the research, Kingsolver had enough experience to know that an outsider coming in and interviewing the locals, would not get an accurate conclusion. Not being able to speak Sinhala or Tamil, she utilized interpreters to communicate more efficiently. For example, Sasikumar Balasundaram was one such interpreter who, himself being a member of a tea estate community and student in Sri Lanka, used his research in his own undergraduate thesis. To gain as many different perspectives as possible, Kingsolver had booklet of questions in different languages that were to be distributed as the interviewers wished. The class of students that Kingsolver taught was the interviewers and given their different backgrounds and language skills, they gave the research the wide range that was needed. The unemployment rate of the young people of Sri Lanka is a problem that needs to be addressed. Sri Lankans have the highest suicide rate in the world (Gunewardenas

2007b). Most of these suicides are young people with a laundry list of depression, including the sadness of not having a job. According to reports, thirty percent of Sri Lankans between the ages of 18 to 35 are unemployed (Balasuriya and Hughes 2003:1). This problem was the problem at hand. Those interviewed include: employed and unemployed university graduates, current students, and those who have never attended a university, parents of the unemployed, and NGO workers who are attempting to ratify the problem of unemployment. Those conducting the interviews agreed on several questions to ask including how the unemployment I effecting family and community, possible solutions, difference in educations in preparation for employment, and if any links can be seen between those unemployed and the language, government policy, and frustration levels of the young people unemployed. Amongst those interviewed, there was an underlining agreement in the student, despite their age, gender, religion, etc, that the public educational systems were unable to prepare the students due to the lack of computer and English skills. The blame for this lack of preparations goes to the war and the disruptions that it caused. This lack of preparation seems to be the precursor for the lack of jobs, therefore the young people turn to drug use, depression, etc, effecting not only them and their families, but entire communities. The education system did not seem to address the issues at hand. They may train a woman to weld, but welding was not a desired job of women, therefore their education was not adequate for the job market for her. Once their certification is received, many students are either sitting at home with no job, or doing ordinary job and therefore frustrated, knowing they are qualified for high quality jobs.

Not only is the lack of jobs affecting the community, but the foreign companies that come in and set up shop are as well. Moreover, these companies are damaging the environment. The foreign companies come into Sri Lanka, use their raw materials and sell them back to the Sri Lanka for high prices. Small businesses cannot compete with this, so they are closing down. These big companies are using resources native to the land, therefore they are losing a lot of their wildlife such as insects, birds, fish, etc. The people of Sri Lanka are not able to complain about this because they are giving them jobs. Its a loselose situation. Work on a tea estate is gendered. Men do soil conservation and replanting of the tea bushes and women pluck the tea. Women are the bread winners of the family, but their work is very dependent on rainfall. They only get paid if there has been adequate rainfall for the bushes to have sprouted. Since men do not make as much as women, they have begun to pick up and move. Without the men there to tend to the soil and replanting, women are out of work. Women then leave to work in garment factories and men go work for smallholders that offer higher pay and additional perks that they didnt have before. Due to these shaky grounds of the agriculture jobs, young men, especially, are more inclined to look for government jobs because they are offered more job security and benefits. Among the middle-aged people interviewed in the tea industry management, they felt that young people were just not attracted to the jobs themselves, and they felt that the problem of unemployment could be fixed by just making the jobs more attractive to the young people, such as factory jobs did. One tea manager presented the idea of uniforms making the job seem more modern.

Talking to the young people themselves, they were asked why they would leave the agriculture jobs for factory jobs. They stated that their focus was on their children. They want them to be students and staying on the tea estates did not guarantee this for them. They want them to be doctors or engineers, but where they were the roads were not god at all, and without the transportation, school is not an option. They love isolated. 31 young people, average age of 21, all coming from tea estates gathered together for their interviews. Those interviewed, half men, half women, were asked a set of questions. These people where then broken off into 6 groups. 5 of the 6 stated a desire to move away from their communities and only 1 group had an interesting in staying. The groups wanting to move wanted to seek better education, better salary for their work, they wanted to vote. Staying they were faced with the lack of health, transportation, education, and communication facilities. The group that wanted to stay said they want the same things as the other group, but they wanted to change their home communities into the more desired locations. They wanted to improve roads, health, education, etc in their own communities. All 6 of these groups interviewed of young people said they would stay in the agricultural sector is they could rely on the education, wages, and health care to improve. They would like jobs that help, not harm, the environment. They would like training to work in childcare centers. Theyd like more jobs in computers, industrial-based jobs, selfemployment, electronics, sewing, poultry farming, animal husbandry, teaching, and government jobs so that families can stay together rather than having to move elsewhere. Women and men showed a desire for equal rights among the genders. They both seem to want to aspire for equality in the genders, since it was not so now. Women were not

allowed to migrate and where not able to study law. The young people purposed to set up workshops to improve computer and language skills. None of the youth mentioned anything about uniforms, nor did they feel that it would improve the situation of the unemployment and found it surprising that anyone would see this as a possible solution. Its interesting to see the difference in opinions between the young people and the tea estate managers. The older people interviewed felt that they had to change the appearance of the tea industry so that it was more appealing to the young people. In contrast, the young people expressed a desire for better education, more skills training, and a better way of life. Uniforms and modernization is not something that will change this unemployment crisis. If those in the management would listen to the young people, and their ideas, things may change for the better. Even if people wont listen to the young people, they are going the extra mile by using new media and getting the word out themselves. Their voice will be heard, and hopefully change their home communities for the better.

References Balasuriya, Lal, and Rees Hughes 2003 Education and Employment: Sri Lanka at the Crossroads. Paper presented at the 9"' International Conference on Sri Lanka Studies, November 28-30, Matara, Sri Lanka. Balasuriya, Lal. 2003. In Education and Employment: Sri Lanka at the Crossroads , Women's Suicide as Resistance in Sri Lanka Nandini Gunewardena. 2007. In Shout Out! Women of Color Respond to Violence , Maria Ochoa (ed.). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. p. 120-139