EDUCATION IN THE PLANTATION SECTOR

(Excerpted from the autobiography of Merrill J. Fernando)

Apart from livelihoods, post-tsunami, children’s education was one of the most deeply-affected dimensions. Our team established pre-schools for children in the affected areas and supplied teachers, specially trained by the Foundation not only to educate but also to handle emotional and physical trauma, resulting from the tsunami experience.

The outcomes of the educational assistance initiatives are probably most visible in the plantation sector, across three Regional Plantation Companies, benefiting several thousand children in terms of learning, equipment, accessories, and other facilities and, equally importantly, nutrition. At a higher level, bright students have been provided scholarships to enable them to pursue university education. This initiative has already produced two medical doctors and two lawyers, whilst there are five such students currently reading for their medical degrees in the medical faculties of the Jaffna, Rajarata, and Peradeniya Universities. The present judge in the Magistrate’s Court of Jaffna is also a direct beneficiary of the plantation residents’ scholarship programme.

The inadequacies of education in plantation areas are not visible to the mainstream because of the insular nature of the plantation society. Most plantation youth, male and female, because of overcrowded housing, a reluctance to engage in the traditional manual work of their parents, the desire for easy money, and the real need for augmenting family income, drop out very early from educational systems and seek employment outside.

However, due to lack of marketable skills and the minimalistic level of formal education, these youth are relegated to employment mostly below the blue collar level, condemning them and their progeny to the same vicious cycle of marginalization. Without assistance from specially-designed schemes, providing plantation youth access to higher education, the plantation sector will remain, well into the foreseeable future, a source of unskilled, low-paid labour, for the benefit of the more affluent external society.

The sweat and toil of our plantation workers, for over a century, have helped create billionaires in the other countries, in Europe and elsewhere, and in our country as well. I was first exposed to this culture of exploitation on my first visit to England, more than six decades ago when I underwent training as a Tea Taster at Mincing Lane, then the global centre of the tea trade. However, the worker who produces the tea, which enriches so many others in the commercial pipeline, remains marginalized. Unless the value created by the tea remains in the country and a surplus is channeled back for the workers’ benefit, as Dilmah is doing, the plantation worker’s lot will not change.

Personal experience

When I visited the tsunami-hit areas of the south, I saw for myself the impact of the devastation. I met children who had lost parents and siblings, and parents who had lost their children. People had lost homes and livelihoods. Some of these children had been so traumatized by their experiences, that they would not communicate or interact with society, in their silence and mute withdrawal, finding a measure of solace for an inexplicable tragedy.

Those who could muster the will to talk related the most harrowing tales of personal loss and deprivation. Listening to individual stories of such tragedies I felt so distressed that I could not even imagine how devastating it would have been to the individual who was telling me the story.

On one of his visits to the north, two doctors serving in the region had met Dilhan and requested him to build a new wing for the Accident Ward of the Kayts Hospital. I was not confident of the benefits of this kind of initiative, largely because of a disappointing experience previously with the Maharagama Cancer Hospital. The Foundation donated to the hospital a mammogram machine, which was idle for months after installation as the hospital did not provide X-ray film. However, Dilhan ascertained that the doctors who approached him were genuine and, about a year later, we completed construction of the new wing.

At Kayts – with a happy beneficiary

I attended the opening with my friend Ravi Thambiayah. After the ceremony, people of the area came and thanked me personally, assuring me that the new wing would actually save lives, which otherwise would be lost. Their gratitude was overwhelming. Such was their appreciation that they perceived me as an emissary of the gods they worshiped.

Apparently, in that area, people struck down by sudden and serious illnesses, snake-bites, and those injured in accidents, normally had to travel to the Jaffna Hospital, 16 km away and because of the inadequacy of transport facilities, two hours’ travel time away at best. With the new wing, such patients would be attended to within minutes. I was told that over 40,000 people were dependent on that hospital.

It takes little to enrich the lives of simple people, to whom the fulfillment of a basic need is an unexpected luxury. The Kayts experience encouraged me to extend the Foundation’s assistance in the north, and the next result was the construction of a new, three-storey, 90-bed ward block for the Point Pedro General Hospital, opened for operations in February 2021.

The existing ward buildings were over a century old and dilapidated, severely limiting the services the hospital could offer to over 150,000 people who depended on it. This initiative was co-sponsored, by the Ian and Barbara Karan Foundation for Youth Development. In fact, it was declared open on my behalf by Ian and his wife Barbara, in association with K. Ravindran and Rajan Asirwatham, both Trustees of the MJF Charitable Foundation, and my son Dilhan.

Symbolically, Ian Karan, my dear friend of many years, had been born in the very same hospital in 1939! Orphaned at a young age, he received his early education at Hartley College, Point Pedro. Thereafter, he entered the London School of Economics. Subsequently securing employment in a shipping company in Hamburg, in 1975 he set up a shipping company of his own.

Selling off that business in 1996, he established a container leasing company which, by the time he sold it a few years later, had become one of the largest such enterprises in the world. His foundation supports youth development, particularly in Sri Lanka, through the nationwide promotion of charitable initiatives, institutions, and projects. Like me, Ian is also a man of simple origins and strong in faith, who later became a successful entrepreneur. He too subscribes to the principle of the entrepreneur’s responsibility towards social justice.

Ian, Barbara, and his children became great friends with my family as well. All my visits to Hamburg included meetings with Ian and his family; knowing my fondness for opera and other performing arts, Ian and Barbara would ensure that my visits to them were enlivened by attendance at the Hamburg State Opera, for which they would very kindly get tickets for me.

The world of children – the dark side

I am haunted by the recurrent image of little children born with serious disabilities, undergoing rehabilitation and therapy, at both the Moratuwa and Kalkudah Centres. As a man with an abiding faith in a merciful God, the afflictions of such children is to me an inexplicable tragedy. Dilhan has always warned me against showing outward demonstrations of my distress on my visits to them, as that could upset the parents. However, I am also deeply grateful to providence that I have been able to contribute in some measure to make such lives more comfortable.

Children with congenital impairments are a heart-break for the concerned families. Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism are conditions, which affected children and their families are compelled to live with till the end as there is no cure. Such children are marginalized and isolated, both by society and often by their own families. Both our Moratuwa and the East Centres provide for the care and training of disadvantaged children, as well as their family members, who need to be educated in the management and care of affected children. These programmes relieve parents from much of the pressure of caring for such children.

The stigmatization that such children are subject to by mainstream society, was brought home to me in a most unpleasant development soon after the commencement of the operations of the Ambagahawatte Centre, which specializes in the rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy and other developmental disorders.

Families in the immediate neighbourhood protested at its purpose and activities, as they considered the housing of such disadvantaged children so close to their homes as potential for bad luck for themselves! Such superstitious and insensitive attitudes prevalent in mainstream society strongly reinforce the need for special initiatives to assist the disabled and to empower their families as well.

These children are also trained, educated, and stimulated by well-trained and caring staff to create art and, in various other ways, such as dance and theatre, to express themselves. Our annual MJF Centre ‘Celebrating Differences’ event, has become an ideal platform for the self-expression of these children, under normal circumstances condemned to lives of loneliness and an absence of recognition.

The performances that these differently-abled children produce year after year, with such self-confidence despite impediments to speech, movement, and cognition, are inspirational and deeply moving. What’s on display is not just child theatre, but, also, the power of love and caring. I witness this event every year and each time I am moved to tears.

Nipuna, one such child who has been with the Moratuwa Centre for several years, has become a child artist and improved his interpersonal skills to such an extent that we were able to place him in charge of a little restaurant we opened. Despite the inherent disadvantages of Down syndrome, he has developed to a stage where he considers himself an entrepreneur. He has told me very confidently that he wants to be a chairman of a company.

The progress of our initiatives with disabled children are signposted by such small, hard-won victories, but which loom large in the lives of those so enabled. One of the greatest joys of my life is seeing the beautiful smiles of little children, reflecting their joy at the liberation from congenital impediments.

There are other heart-warming moments, such as on a visit to an orphanage that the Foundation supports, when a blind child grabs Dilhan’s hand, smells his palm, and says with a brilliant smile: “This must be Mr. Dilhan.” To me, a little episode like that justifies all the resources that Dilmah diverts to the Foundation.

My world view

In the unforgiving world of big business and corporate enterprise, amid the relentless and mercenary crusade to become better, bigger, and more profitable, it is very easy to lose sight of the very society which big business feeds on; a society which consists largely of small people, struggling daily to make ends meet. The slightest disruption to the equilibrium of the diverse forces which regulate that society, whether through natural calamity, man-made conflict, or ungovernable economic disorder, immediately affects small people; they are the very first casualties of any upheaval as, their condition makes them the most vulnerable of our society.

A business cannot engage in charity at the expense of profit but, by the same token, a business cannot ignore the inequalities and inequities of the world in which it operates. A business creates genuine and lasting shareholder value when, within the means of its operation, it addresses those issues in the external society.

`Fair Trade’ has become a catchy slogan and the labels which carry that mantra provide comfort to civic-minded customers, who believe that part of what they pay for the product will go back to the producer. In the business reality of my perception, the ‘Fair Trade’ of corporate jargon is little more than marketing strategy, leveraged to perpetuate the existing system of multinational exploitation. In that system, from what the consumer pays at the cashier’s counter, the supermarket, the packer, the distributor, the importer, and the broker each get their piece of the action. The producer and the farmer are left with the crumbs off the table.

The ‘Fair Trade’ slogan has been introduced to marketing-speak by the multinationals because, after decades of exploitation along the chain, they have been compelled to accept the fact their trade has been, essentially, always unfair! In the hands of most traders, ‘Fair Trade’ has become a tool to gain the sympathy and support of the consumer, without genuinely addressing the consequences of unfair trade.

Genuinely fair trade presupposes the empowerment of the producer, but in reality very little of the value goes back to the farmer. Trade becomes genuinely fair only when earnings surplus is deployed in the country of origin, outside the ambit of the business, in caring for and empowering the marginalized and the indigent.

The country which grows the product is the best location for ‘Fair Trade’. That is what Dilmah does. Every cup of Dilmah tea, wherever in the world it is drunk, brings a measure of happiness, comfort, and empowerment, to either an individual or a community in need back in the country where the Dilmah tea is grown.

Opening of 100 bed ward at Point Pedro; Ian, Dilhan, Rajan, Ravi & Barbara

The needs of the disadvantaged in our society are many. Governments, which are shackled by bureaucratic restrictions, can only do so much and because of the size of the problem, that is insufficient. I know that I am also making a small impact within the means enabled by my business. But my view is that if all entrepreneurs make whatever contribution possible, addressing genuine community inadequacies in a sustainable manner, the world will become a much better place for the disadvantaged and the marginalized. I stand by my view, that every business must have a greater purpose which lies beyond profit.

After I launched the Foundation and its work got going in an organized manner, Dilhan kept bringing me more and more projects for sponsorship. I agreed to help with whatever resources I can divert for the cause and, despite my initial misgivings regarding the sustainability of our philanthropy, somehow the means have always appeared. The Bible says that the charity that you do is a gift to God and God repays you in abundance. In this world there is no shortage of wealth, but there is a great inequity in its distribution. Those who possess the means must correct that imbalance and that correction can be achieved only by sharing.

The fruits of the success of Dilmah have been many. It has provided employment to thousands, both here and abroad; it has also enriched many. In the process, it has carried across the world the message of the value of Pure Ceylon Tea and established its image as a desirable product in over 100 countries. It has brought me fame, fortune, recognition, and accolades. However, in my mind, its most valuable outcome is the goodness that I, along with my family, have been able to create with the value created by Dilmah. That will be its most enduring legacy.

‘Business as a Matter of Human Service’ is a responsibility we all share and that which we must all contribute to. What I shared with 18 of my workers six decades ago has, through the efforts of the many people who accompanied me on my long journey, and with the grace of God, increased exponentially and today benefits thousands of less-fortunate individuals and their families. As my friend Leighton Smith of New Zealand has expressed so very simply in his book, ‘Leighton Smith, Beyond the Microphone: “Merrill is an admirable example of how what you put out comes back to you; in his case, in droves… “

We come into this world with nothing, we leave with nothing. The wealth that some of us acquire is owed to the efforts and cooperation of many others around us. Let us, therefore, share that wealth while we are still around, so that the goodwill and contentment created thereby may make our world a happier place for others too.