Last year, volunteers from the Tamil community headed to war-affected regions in north and eastern Sri Lanka. The young professionals, most of them from the GTA, worked as part of comdu.it, a relatively new not-for-profit carving out its own space among the various efforts in the Tamil diaspora.
There are groups in Toronto’s Tamil community who take part in political advocacy and human rights campaigns and raising money for scholarships and other charities. “That kind of work should continue,” says Kumaran Nadesan, a founding chair at comdu.it.
But his group’s efforts in Sri Lanka are focused on helping young people build leadership skills as well as building economic development projects. “We are focused on tapping knowledge, skills and professional networks, and taking all of that back home.”
