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Social Aid Foundation (SAF) - Working for Malaiyagam Community
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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.
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