Tamil Youth Organization

The website I would like to present for his week is Tamil Youth Organization Switzerland (TYO). It is an independent branch of the international Tamil Youth association. Among the goals of the Swiss branch are:

• socio-cultural problems with special focus on the Tamil Youth;
• enhancing intercultural contact of the Tamil population in Switzerland and the Swiss population;
• fostering the Tamil youth (equality of opportunity and knowledge) and preserving characteristics of Tamil culture;
• organization of seminars about a variety of issues (school system in Switzerland, war, racism,…);
• tutoring for children and support for parents in terms of language (translations);
• information about the situation in Sri Lanka; support of the victims of the civil war in Sri Lanka;
• vouching for right to self-determination (in Sri Lanka)

The page provides information about the Tamil population in Switzerland, the actual information in Sri Lanka (although there are only two documents of which the newer is from 2011), news are provided by the members of the page or translated form Tamil into German, information about Tamil culture, language, history, music, diaspora,…, a list of events organized by  TYO, announcements of projects. Further, there is a gallery, a video collection, surveys, music, columns where everyone who is registered on the page can publish articles, and information about using computer in Tamil. Moreover, there is a area “school”, where one can find worksheet and exercises (at the moment for German and Mathematics). Further, the website is managed by three persons of Tamil origin, the main language is German, but there is also a version in Tamil, which seems to be slightly different (comparing the pictures on both pages). Italian and French versions are under construction. To access the internal part of the page registration is needed (which I could not manage to do as there is only a login but no registration option…).

For those interested, here some background knowledge on the situation of the Tamil diaspora in Switzerland (these are to paragraphs from a paper I had written during my undergraduate studies in Switzerland):

The first Sri Lankan immigrants entered Switzerland mainly as asylum-seekers in 1971, because of the conflict between the Tamil and Singhalese population4 in Sri Lanka reaching exacerbating dimensions by the beginning of the 1980s. The number of Sri Lankans asking for asylum in Switzerland increased in the following years, reaching a peak in 1991. The first Sri Lankans attained Swiss citizenship in the 1970s, with steadily increasing figures in the subsequent decades. Between 1973 and 2006 11’000 Sri Lankan were naturalized (Moret 2007: 44). Since the 1990s the percentage of Swiss born with Sri Lankan roots is increasing, was it 19% in 1997 it augmented up to 44% in 2005 (ibid.: 44).

What is the general perception of the Tamil Diaspora among the Swiss society?

At present, they are seen as a well-integrated ethnic community (in the sense of hard working and peaceful). In terms of Esser’s notion of ‘systematic integration’ (Esser 2001: 39) the Tamils could be seen as well integrated. With regard to their ‘social integration’, however, a slightly different assessment could be made. Socially the Tamils seem to be less integrated, as they maintain social relations mainly within their community – which becomes particularly discernable in practices such as endogamy, speaking their own language, etc. Nevertheless this does not seem to bother Swiss society. Has it, however, not always been like that? Have the Tamils not always represented that type of immigrant the Swiss have desired? During the first years of Tamil or Sri Lankan immigration they were associated with violence, criminality, drug dealing and social fraud – the same aspects that are associated with the immigrants of today (e.g. coming from the Balkan region or Africa). So when did the perception of the Tamil change? The perception of the Tamil population in Switzerland altered in the 1990s, with better economic integration – which includes important values for many Swiss citizens (e.g. punctuality, hard work, cleanness and discipline) – and the family reunion, leading to the arrival of Tamil women and thus reuniting families.

References: 

• Esser, Hartmut (2001): Integration und Ethnische Schichtung. Mannheim.
• Moret, Joëlle, Denise Efionayi and Fabienne Stants (2007): Die Srilankische Diaspora in der Schweiz. Bundesamt für Migration.