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Former child combatants play cricket as part of a rehabilitation program - Source: Reuters
Sri Lanka is hoping its love of cricket, the country's most
popular game, will help rehabilitate children caught up in the
island's bloody civil war with Tamil Tiger separatists.
Many Sri Lankan children have known little but war, which raged for
25 years before ending with a final push by government forces last
May.
Sri Lankan authorities, backed by the International Cricket Council
(ICC), the game's governing body, hope cricket will be able to help
some of those children.
About 370 children are under government rehabilitation programmes
to help them recover from the war.
Some of them were trained by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam to fight against the military, while others were used as
child labourers.
An ICC-commissioned Cricket for Change group has begun week-long
training for some of those children, hoping to help them heal,
teach them values like teamwork and restore them to normal lives,
officials said.
"I like this. Now we have the freedom and time to engage in sports
and education," one 15-year-old, who identified himself as
Dharmarathnam, said.
He said he had repaired diesel engines for the Tamil Tigers and had
lived in their de facto capital, Kilinochchi.
Eighteen former combatants are among 24 children who have already
graduated from the Cricket for Change programme after a week's
training, officials said.
Standing in the international stadium in Colmbo where the Sri
Lankan national team plays, Dharmarathnam and other children were
dressed in white and blue outfits instead of the green-striped
uniforms many of them had been forced to wear by the rebels.
"We are using the power of sport through this great partnership to
reach out to vulnerable children and help them realise their full
potential," said Philippe Duamelle, Sri Lanka's representative of
the United Nations children's agency, UNICEF.
