Day Four – Windsor

Day Four – Windsor

We arrived in Windsor late last night, and we were welcomed by a Tamil family, who opened their homes and their hearts to us. It was an interesting thing I picked up all throughout the trip, as the Tamil people that did exist in these areas, although few, were more than willing to help us out in every aspect. When people say Tamils aren’t united, I would like to change that and say Tamils are united across all walks of life, which we have experienced firsthand the first few days.

We woke up early morning and made our way to Windsor University, and met up with our contacts from the CFS (Canadian Federation of Students). On arrival we realized how the campus was pretty much empty. It was the Friday before reading break, and the contacts that helped us out with the teach –in and the tabling let us know that the turnout would be pretty bad. So like we have been doing the past four days we took a different approach to getting our word out. While making our rounds around campus, we had about 100 personal one on one conversation’s with people about the genocide in Sri Lanka. And to our surprise the 100 people were mostly Non-Tamils.

We expected a large number of Tamil people on this campus, but failed to see that large number because of the time we spent on campus. Our “teach – in” drew a large number of non-Tamils, as there were more non-Tamils than Tamils. The teach-in was very successful and actually engaged the audience to ask questions about the genocide. Following the session although we didn’t a point person to be the liaison for our activist network, we actually gained contacts of a person who is willing to find a person to take on that task. All in all this day was very successful. It was very different in every aspect, and in every campus. It was exactly what we expected.

Phase one is complete, and the work is just beginning. We hope that this trip brings about great change.

Until we meet again for phase two of our trip ......