"..300km is a long way, but to think that as I write this, there is a child crying in their mother’s arms for food, or that an old grandparent is suffering uncontrollably from not being able to access adequate medicines, and so many other forms of unimaginable torture, I know that my walk is only the least I can do. By carrying out this walk, I hope and urge the Australian government and the general public to apply as much pressure as they can muster on the Sri Lankan government to release the 300,000 Tamils detained within camps. It is now in our hands to make a difference, as their cries for freedom fall on the deaf ears of the Sri Lankan military forces that control these camps. .."

Vishna Sivaraj

Born 6th July 1989, Australia
Currently lives in Sydney
Completed education at CHS
Profession – Student at UNSW, studying criminology

Reason for Doing the Walk

I first visited the island of Sri Lanka in 2004 at the age of 15, and I must say it was an experience that definitely changed the way that I look at the world. I gained so much from that 4 month trip, where I spent time helping victims of the Boxing Day Tsunami. The damage caused by the Tsunami was terrible and I volunteered to look after children, teach infants and adults English and was able to learn more about Tamil culture and traditions, that I had not experienced back home in Australia

However what shocked me the most was the hardship, poverty and lack of facilities that the people were faced with in the North and Eastern parts of Sri Lanka when compared to the highly developed and well maintained Southern and Western provinces. The North and East of the island, mainly populated by Tamils, bore the scars of a long and treacherous war where the civilians were truly the main victims. As we drove around the dirt roads and saw the ruined schools, churches, temples and houses, I was left perplexed as to how these people lived their lives in the midst of so much disaster and destruction.

It was at the least comforting that these people still had a place to call home and lived with the basic necessities of food, water, sanitation and shelter. This was all to soon disappear as the Sri Lankan army carried out a brutal assault upon the Tamil homeland.

To hear in recent times that the Sri Lankan government have rounded up these innocent civilians and put them in so called “internment camps” was the last straw. I knew that some drastic action needed to be taken, so as to alert the Australia public and especially those in our government about the atrocious conditions that over 300,000 Tamil civilians now live in. All over the news, appear the images of howling children who have just been orphaned, and piles of human bodies stacked upon each other due to disease and starvation within the camps. The people and their faces have permanently entrenched themselves into my mind.

I suddenly found myself with one goal and that was to do anything, at any cost, to get those people out of those camps. The Tamil people have their own homes to go back to, and as Australians we are willing to fight for their basic human rights and ensure they are released from those horrendous camps.

300km is a long way, but to think that as I write this, there is a child crying in their mother’s arms for food, or that an old grandparent is suffering uncontrollably from not being able to access adequate medicines, and so many other forms of unimaginable torture, I know that my walk is only the least I can do. By carrying out this walk, I hope and urge the Australian government and the general public to apply as much pressure as they can muster on the Sri Lankan government to release the 300,000 Tamils detained within camps. It is now in our hands to make a difference, as their cries for freedom fall on the deaf ears of the Sri Lankan military forces that control these camps.

Source: http://free300k.wordpress.com/vishna/