‘I Am’ – A Project That Aims To Capture Disappearing Narratives Of Sri Lanka

By Shashika Bandara -November 30, 2013

Shashika Bandara

‘I Am’ - A project that aims to capture disappearing narratives of Sri Lanka to understand our divisions better

I was told ‘we have been so many years in Ceylon. No one has studied Buddhism. Would you be able to do it?’ I said well, I will try” recalled Father Vito Perniola, one-hundred-year old Italian Jesuit priest who came to Ceylon in 1936. Fr. Perniola went onto teach Pali to Buddhist monks and nuns, and also published the standard textbook on Pali grammar in English.  On the other side of Sri Lanka, Byron Ummani the Veddah elder from Batticaloa, reflected on the development of his people, but also expressed his sadness at how the younger generation are abandoning their native language.

Capturing these unique and disappearing narratives of elders, Kannan Arunasalam, an award-winning filmmaker, and narrative journalist explains that his journey began with a single question: ‘Was there a time when people in Sri Lanka didn’t describe themselves as Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher?’ (http://iam.lk/about) He set off to meet a generation of elders who could shed light on the many facets that make up the Sri Lankan identity and tell us why people’s perception of identity became increasingly ethnicised and polarised.

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Traumatic Brain Injury Among The Sri Lankan Combat Veterans

By Ruwan M Jayatunge -November 30, 2013 

Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge MD

A significant number of Sri Lankan soldiers sustained head injuries during the Eelam War that lasted from 1983 to 2009. These head injuries mainly occurred due to gunshot wounds, mortar blast injuries, grenade explosions and artillery blasts. Traumatic Brain Injuries increased High morbidity and mortality rates among the Sri Lankan combatants. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) had been one of the signature injuries of the Eelam War.

Traumatic brain injury has short and long term consequences. It affects the physical, social, psychological and occupational aspects of combatant’s life.  The combatants with severe TBI have permanent neurobiological damage with profound psychosocial problems. TBI has been identified as one of the disabling conditions among the combatants.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) refers to a physiologically significant disruption of brain function resulting from the application of external physical force, including acceleration/deceleration forces (Silver et al, 2009). The victims experience emotional liability, sensory impairments, neuro- cognitive deficits and spasticity following traumatic brain injuries.

Traumatic brain injury is a common cause of neurological damage and disability among civilians and servicemen (Auxéméry, 2012). Schneider and colleagues (2009) elucidate that behaviorally the military population in general is considered to be a high risk group for TBI.  According to Scherer et al., (2013) within the last decade, more than 220,000 service members have sustained traumatic brain injury (TBI) in support of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009 over 200,000 military personal were deployed in the operational areas and considerable numbers sustained mild to severe head injuries following enemy attacks. In a convenience sample of 824 Sri Lankan Army servicemen who were referred to the Psychiatric ward Military Hospital Colombo during August 2002 to March 2006 time period 29 combatants (3.51%) were diagnosed  with TBI. These diagnoses were based on International Classification of Diseases- Tenth Revision (ICD-10) criteria and done by the Consultant Psychiatrist of the Sri Lanka Army.

The Immediate Impact of TBI                                                     Read More