Individual Reflexive Assignment

AFTERMATH OF SRI LANKAN CIVIL WAR

0212/57 | R K Divya Sri | 22nd September 2021

Social Change Idea at a Glance:

To create a platform for the victims of the Sri Lankan Civil war to voice out their bottled-
up feelings and memories of those horrible time. These victims will be a mix of both
Sinhalese & Tamils.

What would this platform do?

 It would be a space for the victims to share their first-hand experience at the war
 Provide a protected space that would help connect peers & give hope on how they
are surviving through the troubled waters
 A record of the people they lost in this war, that is somehow still denied by the Sri
Lankan government
 A record of thoughts from the opposite side of the war, which was largely painted
by the Sri Lankan Government & media

Reasoning behind choosing the particular Idea:

When I was working for the blog, I coincidently fell upon this book that recorded the
incidents of few victims of the war. And I went about searching for some more records of
the victims of the war, but really couldn’t find except for a few. And even in those few, it
mentioned about how people were actually scared to recount their “war memories” (as I
started to call it). 11 years after the war, I started to recount those in my blog. It felt that
the people affected in the war did not still get the justice they deserved. And I felt the least
I could do was to give them a platform to voice out their side of the story.
There have been a lot of documentaries, but I feel that this platform which is happening
~11 year later will get an angle on how they survived the war & the how their life is after
the war.
One thing that really disturbed me about this entire civil war was the fact that many
people are somehow recorded as only missing even now. It feels really wrong that even
their death is not being acknowledged for their families to mourn.

Unique Skill that would be put to use:

This platform requires both technical skills as well as networks to first develop the
platform. Post that it would also require kind of push, so the platform is able to help those
it is intended for.

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The technical skill that would be required here is that of a software developer. I am not an
experienced software developer, but I do have experience in coding professionally. I would
be up to learning the skills for a software developer and mostly look to rope in my friends
from UG who are working as software developers in big tech firms.

Resources & Network to Leverage:

In my UG days, there was this special quota reserved for DASA students. And many
students from Sri Lanka used to study as well in this quota. Don’t know if it was fate or
luck, my roommate was a Sri Lankan. Through her I met a lot of Sri Lankans in my batch
as well as in the senior batches, who I still connect with. This is one part of the network I
plan to leverage to get a first-hand connect with the people affected there. For all I know,
these people’s families could be one of them. This is the first place I plan to begin with.

The second resource that I require is in terms of technical aspects. Though the platform
domain cost will remain affordable, the technical skills will take time for me to learn &
implement. Hence, I would look forward to my UG friends & my work-ex network to help
me in building up this platform & in running it in a volunteer basis.

Target Members & Benefits for Them:

The target members here would be in a two-fold basis. The first part would always be the
directly affected people of the war. The only benefit I intend to provide to these victims
would be a sense of relief once they have shared their story which has been silenced for so
long. The other benefit here is that I hope that this platform would help them find &
connect with people they would have lost because of this war. Right now, according to my
knowledge at least Sri Lankan Tamils are spread out across the world still fighting for a
nationality status. I hope that this platform would help them in finding some peace.

The second part is for people like me who would want to be aware of this issue, but misled
but various sources on the internet. I would like this to a first-account basis (even
anonymous) because that would give the impact of the incident being recounted.

Business Model Canvas:

The platform would be a website named – “YazhKural”, to signify that it is the voice of
the Sri Lankan Tamils.

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