source: Aktualne.cz

Mgr. Sri KumarVishwanathan was born in the town of Kollan, in the State Karala in India. He left his country to go studying physics and math to Moscow. In the 90’s he went through an internship at King’s College in London and in 2006 he was invited for an internship to the US.

He practiced as an educator-teacher in the English section of the Hejčín college in Olomouc. It was love that brought him to this town :)

In 1997, when Moravia got hit by flooding, that left hundreds of people without the roof over their heads, he decided to go and help people in need. For 18 months he lived and worked with Roma residents of Silesian Ostrava, who got hit by the flooding and obtained temporary accommodation in house-containers in Liščina. Through his community work he contributed to resolution of conflicts between the majority White population and the Roma families hit by the flooding. He co-created and introduced into practice methods of field social work in the Roma community; he worked on the elementary school system reform and on the reform of psychological testing of children. He was one of the persons, who initiated the realization of an important project “Cohabitation village”, in which 30 Roma and White families, who lost their homes during the flooding, built new homes using self-help. The project “Cohabitation village” was awarded with Alice Garrigue Masaryk award by the embassy of the United States. 

In 1998, together with the students from Ostrava University and Masaryk University in Brno, he founded a civic association Mutual Cohabitation, which currently employs about 50 people and keeps its know-how of a Roma-White team. Since 2002 Kumar has been working together with the Police of Czech Republic on solving the problem of usury. This collaboration has been developing and lasting until today. At that time the Ministry of Interior included into its standards the collaboration with our police assistants. The project of Police Assistance got rewarded with a prestige Social Marie award and was valued by the Police presidency.

In 2004 Kumar founded the Association for women injured by non voluntary sterilization. This idea was initiated by the same women, who later organized among themselves a series of meetings. During these meetings they had conversations about their stories and analyzed the course of events that led to their inability to ever become mothers.

Currently the organization Mutual Cohabitation offers seven registered social services; it has a mandate for social and legal child protection; it also acquired accreditation to exercise foster care services; it is active in the area of social living and it supported the initiative that led to legislation of social living. The Ministry of Justice entrusted the organization to working with the victims of crime and the Directorate of Employment Office awarded Mutual Living the permission to convey employment.

Key note: Abstract

Stories of the women who were stroke by illegal sterilization

Kumar Vishwanathan will introduce with Roma women, how was developed a community of women, who became victims of illegal sterilization. Altogether they will show us gradual development from their divided destinies to an active and viable community, which fight for a long time against injustice and for a possibility of rightful compensation. After that there will be a film “Stolen motherhood”, mapping the illegal sterilization of Roma women in Czech Republic.