A successful public meeting in Liverpool held by Tamil solidarity last Tuesday. The organisers involved worked extremely hard with mobilising and advertising the event. We had a very good turnout from the local community in particular several enthusiastic members from the Tamil speaking community.
The chair, Bharathi, opened the meeting and gave a brief of the political situation in Sri Lanka and then went on to brief about the Tamil solidarity campaign and the regional work. Keerthikan, the national coordinator, then gave an in-depth talk about Tamil solidarity and of the various achievements. He also provided a good insight into what work is being carried out nationally and internationally and why meetings such these were important. He provided the audience with ideas to how we could work together.
The speaker, Tu Senan, lead-off a brilliant discussion about the 100-day programme by Maithiripala Sirisena and about the various political parties in Sri Lanka and why we have no trust in the TNA. He Explained in the last election why the Tamil solidarity campaign supported a candidate like Siritunga Jayasuriya who was the only candidate standing for the right to self-determination. Senan explain apart from Sivajilingam nobody else has taken this position.
There was a lively discussion and various contributions from the audience such as Tony Mulhearn, as iconic figure who fought against the brutal Thatcher policies in the past and lead the Liverpool Council.
This event opened up a fantastic platform for us to work within more members of the community. The Muslim community especially were very positive of what was discussed in the political session and were welcoming the opportunity to work with us. There will be more meetings to discuss this further. A number of youth also joined us with great prospect of working with us.
We would like all those who helped to organise and all who attended and made this event a success. This is definitely only the beginning for regional work in the northwest and there is now more scope to expand and carryout regular meetings in Tamil and English increasing our political understandings Good fundraising and delicious food overall.
Bharathi (NW regional organiser)
bharathi@tamilsolidarity.org