 | | EDUCATION
"We have become engineers and doctors"
Bridget is one of many Tamil refugees living in India. After fleeing Sri Lanka in 1984, she was able to continue her education in India.
With a degree in economics, she soon began to work for the Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OFERR), which aims to provide aid to the thousands of Tamil refugees in India.
One of OFERR's main objectives is to develop a well-educated community.
Since the start of Sri Lanka's civil war, which erupted in the 1980s between Tamil guerrillas pressing for self-rule and government forces, thousands of Sri Lankan civilians have had to flee their homeland.
Many have fled to the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where a large percentage of the population speak Tamil.
An estimated 70,000 Sri Lankan Tamils live in refugee camps in India and an additional 80,000 have found a home with relatives.
Article 22 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child obliges governments to give help to refugee children. It says a country, "shall take appropriate measures to ensure that a child who is seeking refugee status or who is considered a refugee... shall... receive appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance in the enjoyment of applicable rights set forth in the present Convention..."
The State Government of Tamil Nadu provides more than these basic rights to displaced children. It reserves a minimum of seats at its educational institutions for Tamil refugees, enabling them to study various disciplines. For those who obtain good marks, it even offers education to a high level.
In the following report for A World for Children, Bridget reflects on her childhood in Sri Lanka and her life growing up in India. | |  | | 
I came to India in 1984 along with my parents, in the aftermath of the riots. I was studying in the tenth standard but I had to leave school. Arriving here though I picked up the threads and continued with my schooling. Students were sympathetic and there were a lot of concessions.
After the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, however, the reservations for students in educational institutions were suspended. The quota for us was 40 places each in medical and engineering courses...
I graduated in 1990 and joined OFERR.
The quota was restored in 1996. It stands at 20 places on the medical course, 25 in engineering, 30 in polytechnics, 10 in agriculture, five in law, five percent of the places in Industrial Training Institutes and one place on the veterinary course.
In the arts and science degree courses, places that remain after admission of the native candidates are given to us. In every college, in every faculty, we are entitled to be admitted, but only after the admission of the locals is completed. Our students are admitted in schools without any transfer or birth certificates.
The government of India spends as much money on us as on its own students in higher education.
There are no special concessions for post-graduate courses.
If any of our students perform well in their examinations, they can go for post-graduate places... of course, the fact remains that our people are not financially sound enough to pursue higher studies.
OFERR itself is arranging summer courses in computer education for college students...
As for jobs, well, getting a government job is not possible. But one can try in private firms. One has to professionally equip oneself; go in for job-oriented courses, say for computer training, and get jobs abroad too...
When we first arrived, there was a lot of sympathy for us. Students were admitted straightaway.
I was almost a pampered student in my class. I was the only girl student. Teachers took a lot of interest in me; they gave me special attention. But the Rajiv assassination changed all that. Fellow students started looking upon us with suspicion.
Things have changed for the better since then, but they [Indian students] are still cautious; they are even wary of showing their concern...
Now it is all up to the principals concerned. They first check whether the government has issued the necessary orders. Those who get good marks get admitted first. For others it takes some time.
When we left our nearest and dearest and came here, we were sad and confused. But seeing other Tamil-speaking people was a source of great consolation for us. We were able to continue our education. We have become engineers and doctors. Such opportunities would not have come our way anywhere else in the world.
All the same we feel like caged birds. We are eagerly looking forward to the day when we would be able to return to our motherland. We don't want to be an additional burden to this country.  | | | | | |  |  |
 Sri Lanka has a mixed Tamil minority (roughly 18% of the population) concentrated in the northern and eastern parts of the island and Buddhist Sinhalese majority (74%) in the south west.
After independence in 1948, the rise of a Sinhala nationalism further deteriorated ethnic tensions between both communities. Sinhala was declared the country's official language along with other discriminatory policies against Tamils. In the mid 1970s, Tamils called for a separate state in the north and east.
The conflict worsened in 1991 when the then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated during an election campaign trip. A Tamil Tiger suicide bomber was held responsible.
Tamil refugees receive some financial aid in India. Those residing in refugee camps in the south seek work in construction sites and coconut plantations in the area.
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