Expanding role of diaspora youth in political activism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 February 2008, 21:17 GMT]
Signs of increasing number of diaspora Tamil youth in Australia and Canada seeking new outlets to express their support for the Tamil struggle, and reinforcing their roots in Tamil culture, were visible recently when Australian youths made their presence known during a cricket game on the 12th of February at the Manuka oval in Canberra, and the Canadian Tamil students from York University used Tamileelam flag as the rallying symbol as they exhibited prize winning entries in the cultural shows during the "multicultural week" event in York.

During the week-long event in York University, the Tamil students organization was selected as the best group. "The goals of our group is to bring together the Tamil student community not only in York, but across all higher institutions in Canada, and to expose the student community to the cultural aspects that define our roots," key spokesperson for the group said.

More than 10,000 students and 60 different Student Organizations participated in the week-long event.

Sporting red T-shirts, with an Eelam map and “Voice of Tamils” written across the map and “Where is humanity?” Australian Tamil youth from Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne gathered on the 12th of February at the Manuka oval in Canberra to voice support for the Tamil struggle and to highlight the worsening humanitarian situation in the Tamil North East of Sri Lanka.

Yahoo.com quoted Adrian Francis from this group as saying "It's more of a campaign than a protest. "We are doing this because we believe that Tamils in Sri Lanka are discriminated against and poorly treated. They are subjected to injustice in every possible walk of life and this has to change.”


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