“The greatest poverty of all is the poverty of self help. The Tamil people must be made to ‘look within’ and generate most of their activities by their own endeavour. To all exiles out of Sri Lanka who are prepared to walk this road, however hard it may be to help the many that we left behind. Our message is that our resolve and commitment must be more determined than ever so that our people do not become exiles in the land of their birth.”

Founder President of SCOT, late Dr K Arumugam; Extract from SCOT Newsletter Nov 1979

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Welcome to SCOT's website. We hope the few minutes you spend looking through the contents here will help you appreciate our efforts and encourage you to support us.

Founded in 1977, The Standing Committee of Tamil Speaking People (SCOT) is one of the older Tamil organisations in the United Kingdom. Our mission is to support vulnerable Tamil-speaking people of Sri Lanka. Click here to learn more about us.







Tamil New Year Celebration - Welcome the New Year with SCOT, by coming to our annual Tamil New Year lunch on 17th April 2011. The usual combination of good food, lively conversation and debate with our guest speakers will be on offer. Tickets can be purchased by getting in touch with one of our committee members – Click here for details.
Eastern Sri Lanka Flood Appeal - Sri Lanka has once again become a headline story this January 2011 as it battles against yet another humanitarian crisis. Severe flooding caused by torrential rains on the island’s east coast has affected more than 1,000,000 people and forced 360,000 to become homeless. SCOT is responding to this crisis by supporting our local partners to implement relief projects. Click here for more information.


How We Are Organised >>

SCOT General Council Members >>

Our Constitution

25 Year Brochure

About SCOT

Founded in 1977, The Standing Committee of Tamil Speaking People (SCOT) is one of the older Tamil organisations in the United Kingdom. Our mission is to support the vulnerable Tamil speaking people of Sri Lanka.

Relief and rehabilitation was SCOT's primary mission statement when it formed and continues to be its philosophy in its day to day operation. SCOT remains a non-political charitable organisation, registered with the UK Charity Commission. We believe in working in partnership with established national and international non-governmental organisations in Sri Lanka who are best placed to identify needs and priorities for relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work, basing funding decisions on where the need is greatest and yield value for money.

The physical and psychological impact on those who have survived both manmade and natural disasters that have plagued Sri Lanka over the past several decades is enormous. Families have been torn apart, children have been orphaned and vast numbers have been physically affected through disaster, injury and disease. Homes and livelihoods have been destroyed, together with lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities. Months of bombing, shelling and gunfire have traumatised an already weak and disadvantaged community. What is evident is that the needs are great and unmet at present.

We feel that the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora continues to be a powerful force for good, that has both a great opportunity and responsibility to help those Tamils in need of assistance in Sri Lanka. There is enormous compassion and willingness amongst our community to make a positive contribution to the reconstruction the civil society of a post-war Sri Lanka. We believe that SCOT can provide a channel by which we can realise this.

Our Mission

We are inspired by the courage and experience of the people of Sri Lanka, who despite living through the worst of civil conflict continue to hope for a better life. Our dedicated objective is to provide a base from which expatriate Tamils and other interested members of the UK public can help to improve the living standards and social conditions of Sri Lanka’s Tamil speaking people. In addition we are strongly committed to promoting human rights and we support moves towards establishing inter-racial justice and equality.



Annual Financial Reports

Our Work

What we do

As an organisation we have adapted our activities to the changing context and needs of the people of Sri Lanka. Soon after our inception, we concentrated on providing support to projects that targeted poverty alleviation. However, during the 1980s and into the 1990s, relief and rehabilitation support to the war affected victims became our focus. We have responded to the immediate needs of the 2004 tsunami affected communities and lastly continue to provide support and assistance to victims of the most recent fighting which culminated in a dramatic and bloody ending in the Vanni in 2009.

Who we work with

We believe in working in partnership with independent organisations in Sri Lanka who are best placed to identify needs and priorities for relief, rehabilitation reconstruction and development work. There is significant work being done by brave, determined and motivated national organisations within Sri Lanka and we want to continue to support and enhance the positive changes that they bring.

Working in a country like Sri Lanka means that the road to success is not often smooth. Organisations operate against a changing backdrop of political, economic, environmental and security conditions. Natural and man made disasters interrupt and sometimes even destroy any progress made. Infrastructure is destroyed, people are displaced several times over, families are separated and hope fades. Frustrating as that might be, our Island partners, most of who are affected in the same way as anyone else in the region, rise to the challenges thrown at them, pick up where they left off or simply start all over again.

Through the years we have supported a number of Sri Lankan organisations including:
  • Hindu Council of Sri Lanka (HCSL)
  • Ramakrishna Mission
  • Human Development Centre (HUDEC)
  • Jaffna University
  • Bishops of Jaffna/Trincomalee/Mannar
  • Batticaloa Mental Health Development Organisation
  • Centre of Women and Development (CWD)
  • Organisation for Rehabilitation of the Handicapped (ORHAN)
  • Organisation for Eelam Refugee Rerhabilitation (OfFER)
  • Sri Durga Devi Thevasthanam (Tellipalai)


Apply for SCOT Funding

Projects

Special Needs children

Through ORHAN, SCOT has contributed to the annual rehabilitation of special needs children attending the ‘Puthuvazhvu Poonka’ training centre in Vavuniya. The training centre provides children with nutritional supplements, medical screening checks, physiotherapy, speech therapy, provision of sign language classes and vocational training to name a few of their valuable services.

Relief and rehabilitation support

Over the last couple of years, the majority of our annual budget has gone to organisations providing immediate life saving activities for the war affected communities in the North and East of the country. The activities implemented by our partners have included food distribution, nutritional supplements for pregnant mothers, provision of clothes, mats and other non-food items and the running of medical camps. Following this, rehabilitation support to communities to enable them to restart their livelihoods is essential. SCOT has supported CWD to buy simple items such as notebooks, pens and bicycles for school children and funding for women to start small businesses.

Siddha Medicine Unit, University of Jaffna

This project supported the setting up of a medicinal herb garden in the Jaffna Town area by staff from Jaffna University at Kaithady. The Siddha medicine students at the university felt that the development of an indigenous herb garden was necessary for teaching purposes as well as to protect these rare local herbs from extinction. Local knowledge together with the location of these medicinal herbs throughout the district was being lost due to widespread and frequent displacement of the population.

SCOT Scholarship Fund

In 2009, SCOT established a scholarship fund for students in the Eastern Province. A-Level students who face financial difficulties to pay for their education but who show academic potential are chosen from all three faith groups (Muslim, Hindu and Christian) through a respected panel of religious leaders.



Membership Form

Support Us

There are many ways in which you can support both SCOT and communities in Sri Lanka

Come along to one of our events

At some point you’ve had to sell tickets for a concert, a raffle, a quiz night – and I’m sure you’ll remember the frustration of having to plead and beg your friends and family to support your cause. Why not then buy a ticket to our next event and save us the angst of worrying if enough people will turn up on the night? It’s for a good cause and the food will be great – what more of reason do you need?!

Volunteer with SCOT

Why not come along to our meetings and volunteer with us? We’re always keen to hear from people who want to get more involved with SCOT. Hearing new perspectives from people with different backgrounds and skills helps to broaden our thinking and challenges us to be better at what we do. Fill out our membership form or send an email to our Secretary to see how you can contribute to our work.

Spread the news about SCOT's work to your friends and family

We think there is such a huge need to keep talking about our poor and marginalised in Sri Lanka. As we’ve made clear in the website – the war may be over, but the consequences for the people who have lived through it will remain throughout this generation and many more to come. If you can’t help us financially, or even by volunteering your time, just letting others know about the good work that SCOT does would be encouragement enough for us.

Donate

Make a regular donation

SCOT has continued to function over the last 20 years primarily through regular donations from its membership. The minimum we suggest is Ł10 a month – that’s the price of a ticket to the cinema or a round of drinks after work. If you think about it, it’s not that much to us, but it will make a huge difference to people’s lives in Sri Lanka.

If you’d like to support our work, please click this link to set up a standing order.

Make us your gift list recipient

If you’ve got all you need already and don’t really want to find a home for unwanted wedding presents or are celebrating a big family day, why not suggest to your loved ones to make a donation to SCOT on your behalf to celebrate your big day. Donations to SCOT can be made via http://www.justgiving.co.uk.

Contact Us

We hope that you’ve found the website helpful in understanding more about SCOT and what we do. If you’d like to make an enquiry, want to get more involved or would like to give us feedback, please get in touch with one of the following office bearers of SCOT.

President Dr A Rajendram hinsleyre@hotmail.co.uk
Vice Presidents Dr A E A Joseph
Dr E Velayvithapillai 		aeajoseph@hotmail.com
vela@pillai98.freeserve.co.uk
General Secretary Dr R G Sankaralingam rjrsan@hotmail.com
Treasurer Mr K D Satgunaseelan satgunaseelan@btinternet.com
Project Officer Mr P Swampillai fswampillai@yahoo.com
Assistant Project Officer   Mrs J S Selvarajah jeyaselvarajah@hotmail.co.uk

Please provide us with your email address if you would like to be updated with SCOT news and events, by clicking here.