Danya’s story

Despite spending her life in grim conditions; between an alcoholic father who dies early and a suicidal mother, a strong woman has today turned her life around, in a story of true determination. Life has many ways of testing a person, where some manage to survive while some give way to a breaking point. Some, who survive these tests barely continue to live the rest of their lives, whilst some succeed in life to tell their stories. 

During a month dedicated to celebrating women worldwide, such a rare and remarkable success story was heard from Trincomalee. Sent from one orphanage to another owing to the abject poverty of her family with two younger sisters, a father who died of alcoholism and a mother who survived a gruesome self-immolation attempt, what a 31-year-old woman’s beautiful mind has to say about how she recovered her life back was inspiring. This is Danya’s story. 
During an International Women’s Day celebration and exhibition held at the Trincomalee District Secretariat organised by the German Technical Cooperation (GIZ) and Nucleus Foundation partnering with the Eastern Provincial Council, the Daily Mirror had the opportunity to meet Danya Vasanthan, who was amongst several young women of various age groups exhibiting their technological inventions in dozens of booths. 
She was part of a youth team who had developed a mobile phone application, a platform through which users can order services from plumbers to carpenters and electricians to masons for any urgent domestic restoration round the clock. 

When we inquired about her exhibit she was more than happy to explain its functions with much skill and eloquence making us curious to know more about herself and her academic background. With her answer to this, we were quite taken aback and continued to listen. 
“Sir, I was brought up in orphanages since I was a small child and received most of my education from schools that were arranged by these children’s homes. My parents were struggling to make ends meet with three girls in the family and being the eldest I was sent to an orphanage when I was six,” she said. 
When she told us that she continues to offer her services to one of these orphanages in its administration work as a part-time job even to date, we were eager to visit the place on her invitation.  Located on the picturesque Trincomalee coastal belt the Grace Children’s Home shelters about 35 girls of all ages from four to 18. Seated on a neatly landscaped lawn facing the seafront Danya continued to tell her story. 
“I was born on October 12, 1992. When I was born I had two step brothers from my father’s previous marriage. When my father’s first wife died an untimely death he married my mother, who was his cousin sister. My father was working at the Trincomalee Kachcheri as a clerk and was very committed towards his work. He always helped people to get their vital documents like birth certificates and National Identity Cards obtained through his job and this benevolence landed him in trouble one day. 
My father helped a youth to get his birth certificate done from the Kachcheri to get enrolled in the Sri Lankan Army. However, little did he know that the youth was sent by the LTTE espionage to join the Army as a covert operative. 
When this was found out the CID took him in for grilling and found he was guilty at a court of law, where he was then sentenced to several years in prison for aiding and abetting terrorism. And ultimately he lost his job too. When this was the case for my father, my paternal grandfather had a different destiny in store. 
But long before these events unfolded my father had another problem. He was a good man to the world but was a bad influence on his own family. My father was an alcoholic, who would come home drunk and beat my mother for the slightest reason. 
His behaviour had a severe toll on my mother, who tried to commit suicide once by setting herself on fire with kerosene at home. It was 1994 and I was barely two years old when my mother’s self-immolation act made her survive serious wounds with a severely disfigured body to date. 
When my mother was cured after many months, she still had to take care of many things including the family’s economy, our wellbeing as well as our father’s health, who wouldn’t quit drinking. 
To make a living she found a job at Mother Theresa’s home for elders and children in Trincomalee as a janitor. I was just five when she boarded me there as it was becoming difficult for her to manage three children with a husband suffering from liver damage. 
During this period I heard about the sudden demise of my father, who had been constantly warned by the doctors not to touch alcohol. One evening he had gone out with a friend and had never returned home. My father who took to drinking despite many pleas from my mother and his relatives was found lying dead on the street that night. 
When I was eight years old the management at Mother Theresa’s home sent me to a different children’s home in Gampola. That was a place I had an unforgettable experience in my life until I was 14 years of age. The Convent in Gampola was a highly institutionalized place with strict rules in place, and its administrative Nuns followed them to the letter regarding the orphan children who were housed there. 
We were disciplined in this place where the children had to work like labourers in cleaning and maintaining the place, gardening and garbage disposal, helping with cooking and kitchen hands and many other daily chores in addition to studies. 
The food served there was utterly tasteless with broth and curries that tasted like sewage water. And if we were caught throwing away our food in the bins or sewerage, the nuns would make us retrieve them and eat again. 
We were ordered to clean sewage in drains with bare hands and that was a horrible job to do those days as little kids. But there were far more disgusting realities we had to face there. Every girl who had attained age had been given a piece of white cotton cloth. We had to use these as pads during our menstruation period and keep using the same cloth over and over again not for days but for months by washing it every day.  
However, the way we were brought up in that facility, there is one good thing I have to mention about that place. It’s the education we received there. I couldn’t at least write the Tamil alphabet when I went to Gampola. But I learnt to speak English fluently and got good grades for other subjects during those six years. 
But those days we didn’t realize that. So when I got the next opportunity, which was when my stepbrother visited me one day, I insisted to the management that I should be sent home on a brief vacation to see my mother saying she was not well. I never returned to that Convent again. 
After a few weeks of returning home, my mother and my stepbrother felt the need to send me to another orphanage to complete my education and well-being. So they found this place called Grace in Trincomalee close to my home town in Uppuveli where I remained till I was 18 years of age. 
Grace Children’s Home changed my life’s direction. It was a disciplined place with a clean and healthy environment for growing-up adolescent girls who were treated kindly and attentively by the management. My mentor at Grace was Mr. Moiez Saifudeen who moulded me to be the person I am today. I was generally a carefree kid. But he showed me the importance of being a responsible character to undertake important work in my career as a student and later on at work. After I sat for my Advanced Level  examination I was free to go back home. 
Later on, I was linked to vocational training at Dental Care International, where I worked for a couple of years as an intern. After that, I joined a construction management company called Blackpool Ventures, where I work to date. I also actively work with a circle of friends who formed an organisation called Eegai, where we developed this mobile application (App).
But nothing completes my day if I didn’t visit my orphanage Grace to contribute a couple of hours of my service in management work. 
In 2011, when I was 19 years, I met my life partner at a youth camp held through the Church. We had a relationship for seven years before we got married in 2018, at a beautiful wedding ceremony organised on the beach facing Grace Home.   Since then we were living happily with each other and especially for a person like me who missed much love in life, my partner is everything.  My message to any girl who is in a similar situation as mine or maybe worse in life is to focus on their studies as much as possible. 
Education will take you places one day no matter how cruel or destitute your beginning is. Do not depend on your partner for everything. Try to bring something to the table on your own so your value and respect in the family will be high. And by all means, do not rush to give in to your emotions in life. Do not let quick marriages or physical needs ruin your life. Giving birth to a child is the most beautiful thing in a woman’s life, thus plan it well. Do not let an innocent child’s life end up as an orphan. My only plea to society,” she sighed.