User:Humanrights24

Brief Biography

Nadarajah Kishanthan alias Kisha Nada

Objective

To motivate people to take positive and peaceful action in support of human rights.

Summary

Nadarajah Kishanthanis a Sri Lankan - based Human Rights Activist, Human Rights Documenter, Human Rights researcher and a Poet. He born and brought up in Vavuniya, Northern Province. His commitment and passion on addressing the Human Rights concerns, mainly in the former conflict zones of the Island comes from his own experiences of being a survivor of last phase of the civil war in the North took place in 2009.

He is a HND (Upper Second) holder in Electronics and Electrical from the University of Sunderland, England. Also, he is an independent activist currently doing freelance consultation on documenting Human Rights violation and dealing with the past. His current focus is on the very timely and historically vital initiative, aiming for a comprehensive capture of the unheard voices from the North-East on the Transitional Justice process in Sri Lanka. He has been associated with the The Social Architects (TSA), as a Trustee.

Being continue to work with all three main ethnic representatives and religious representatives at different levels, challenging interventions with some of the ‘hard to reach’ actors, his long term involvement in multi religious programmes containing emerging young leaders across North, East, Northern-Central  provinces of the country has helped him to evolve as a matured and emerging ‘change maker’. This is further strengthened with his personal skills such as diverse networking among various Human Rights actors in the country at different levels, inter-cultural skills and relational empathy. His technical expertise is mainly centred on research, data collection, Human Rights documentation and Archives.

He is proficient in prioritizing and completing tasks in a manner. Enjoys learning new programs and processes. Exceptional project team builder, motivator, mentor and able to work in a fast paced environment. Comfortable in interacting with all levels of the organization and public. Able to negotiate and problem solve quickly, accurately and efficiently. Adept at multitasking to achieve individual and team goals. Develops and cultivates strong community and stakeholder relationships. Also, knowledge about the region.

Work Experiences and Trainings

o  He has worked as Program Manager for Documentation at Home for Human Rights (HHR) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_for_Human_Rights) from end of 2014 to beginning of 2016. Under the mandate of HHR he facilitated the work of local branch offices to collect evidences, documenting human rights violations and collate the collected data to produced analytical reports on the basis of the collated data. He conducted trainings on human rights documentation for many grass roots level community members who were functioning as Human Rights Defenders. His work was largely focused on Northern, Eastern Provinces and Hill Country where the war ended in 2009. Working in these target areas allowed him to gain experience in documenting different types of human rights violations. He produced Situation Reports, analytical reports and Human Rights violation summary reports to support advocacy and lobby work at the national and International level. The situation reports were also used to disseminate information among the diplomatic community. Also, He has played an active role in compiling nearly 89000 data in relation to HR violations in the North East, during some of difficult period of Sri Lankan History.

o   He has worked as the Program Manager for UN communication at Home for Human Rights (HHR) from beginning of 2015 to 2018. He was responsible for sending communications or lodging complaints with the UN Special Rapporteurs, UN working groups and UN Special Procedures on behalf of the victim or victim’s family members

o   He has worked as the Program Manager for Monitoring and Evaluation at Home for Human Rights (HHR) from January 2015 to December 2017. He involved in monitoring all the project activities and evaluating them every three months. I prepared monthly, quarterly, biannual and annual reports. He also involved in conducting seminars and workshops to district level Human Rights Defenders and activists on documenting Human Rights Violations.

o  He has worked as a Program Manager of Reclaiming Reconsolidation Project at The Social Architects ( http://www.tsasouthasia.org/eng/ ) from January 2016 to April 2017. TSA is located in Colombo and has branches in Kilinochchi, Jaffna, Ampara and Anuradapura. Also TSA is working with Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim communities. As a Programme Manager, He worked together with the programme team in the planning and implementation of TSA activities from the head office in Colombo. He was responsible for the organization and execution of all the project activities. He facilitated and moderated victim centered focus group discussions, Inter / Intra Community Tribunals and TSA’s Community Hearing for Truth Seeking. He selected and trained the members for TSA’s Youth for Shared Future (YfSF) group and maintained ongoing contact with YfSF members and groups. He communicated regularly with TSA’s youth groups, branches, partner organizations and donors. He organized capacity building and training programs and assisted team members to carry out their jobs effectively. He designed and conducted project monitoring and evaluations in the field. He prepared monthly progress reports of activities and compiled reports received from the branches. He participated in team meetings as required and represent TSA at national level meetings organized by other national and international NGOs.

Also, as the Programme Manager, part of his responsibility was to organize training, conduct orientation and community awareness programs together with local partners in Vavuniya, Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Amparai and Anuradapuram. He liaised with resource persons, prepared many different types of training materials, including those for victim consultation, and conducted the relevant training. He addressed the past, outline Human Rights violations, introduced and explained Transitional Justice. He was very involved in the difficult but important task of telling personal stories. He conducted these programs in the project areas in Northern, Eastern and North Central Provinces. He documented and prepared reports of such training and follow-up. He had extensive experience working at field level in terms of social service and had an extensive background knowledge on Human Rights issues in Sri Lanka. He had strong facilitation skills and ability to establish links between community members and other stakeholders.

o   Currently he is working as a Project Consultant for Affected Women’s Forum (AWF), Ampara, Sri Lanka. As a Consultant he writes proposals to different funding agencies, prepares ToR for Women groups, prepares questionnaire for documenting HR violations, prepares research questionnaire for community need analysis, Assists project team to write progress reports (Biannual and Annual), Facilitates the training on Transitional Justice and Dealing with the past, Facilitates the training on documenting HR violations and interviewing Victim/victim’s family.

o  In 2015, He participated in the TRAINING COURSE FOR DEFENDERS FROM THE REGIONS ‘Course on the Human Rights Council, international human rights and humanitarian law, international procedures and diplomacy’ which was conducted by Geneva for Human Rights Global Training. Also he attended to the 30th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (14th - 02th September,October2015).

o  In 2016, He participated in the Regional Dealing with the Past Workshop 27 to 31 January 2016, Manila, Philippines which was conducted by Swisspeace ( http://www.swisspeace.ch/topics/dealing-with-the-past.html )

o  In 2014/2016, He has worked as Assistant Director and the lyricist for the movie of Muttrupulliyaa…? (Scars of Tomorrow). This movie tells the story of four individuals navigating their lives in post-war Sri Lanka. It speaks about their silent agony, unfulfilled desires and everyday struggles. This is the first film from inside Sri Lanka to tell the story of what happened after the end of the country’s civil war so devastatingly depicted in Channel 4’s Killing Fields documentaries. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muttrupulliyaa).

o  In 2018, He participated in the training program in Jaffna Sri Lanka on the topic of Owing Accountability: Transitional Justice in Sri Lanka. (12th and 13th August 2018). The training was conducted by University of Windsor.

You can reach him at

o  kishanada@gmail.com

o  twitter@Kishanada

o  Linkedin@Kisha Nada

o  Postal Address : 97/3,Luxshapana Rd,Thonikkal,Vavuniya

o  Contact Number, WhatsApp and Viber : +94771391904

Bio Data

o  First Name      : Kishanthan

o  Sure Name      : Nadarajah

o  Other name      : Kisha Nada

o  Gender            : Male

o  Date of birth    : April 6th 1995

o  Nationality      : Sri Lankan

o  NIC #              : 950972220V

o  Civil status      : Spinter