Sri Lanka, Badulla, Kandy, Tea Estate

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News Letter 26th of June 2008 - Volunteer, Click here to read or download

Just 64p a day for tea pickers in Sri Lanka
A beautiful young girl smiles shyly and, as we pass her, I notice she is toothless. This girl is a tea picker in Kandy, a mountainous area at the island's heart.

Sri Lanka's 'forgotten' tea workers
There is no electricity for daily tasks in Malar Malligai's simple, concrete home in central Sri Lanka.

Hardships of Sri Lanka's Indian Tamils
Constituting around 5% of the island's population, their ancestors were brought to Sri Lanka by the British as manual labourers at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

A day in the life of a Sri Lankan tea worker
The plantation workers live in “line rooms,” which are 5 or 6 small adjoining units. Each family’s unit measures just 6 x 4 metres. The dwellings were first built by British colonial planters for workers brought from South India—forebears of the present plantation workers.

Sri Lanka makes citizens out of stateless tea pickers
I can remember my father and others working in the tea estate," she says. "My mother picked tea leaves and my father worked as a labourer there. I have never been to school. I started picking tea leaves the moment I began to understand things.

Estate youths seek greener pastures
Growing population of young adults within the community of plantation workers in hill country towns of Nuwara Eliya, Hatton, Bandarawela and others see education as their best opportunity to break out of the miserable living conditions their parents endure.

Tea workers; one euro a day!
These Indian-origin Tamils, brought to Sri Lanka a century and a half ago by the British colonialists, along with the tea bushes that they tend, are in many ways the backbone of the island’s working class.