Thulasi Muttulingam, Journalist based in Jaffna, Sri Lanka North at Monsoon Journal Event in Toronto
Monsoon Journal is delighted on the participation of Thulasi Muttulingam at ???Montage Awards 2018???, celebrating South Asian Heritage Month and 12th Anniversary of Monsoon Journal on May 6th at 2 PM at Scarborough Civic Centre. This is the first visit of Thulasi Muttulingam to Canada. Thulasi???s writings have been published in Monsoon Journal since November 2013.
Thulasi Muttulingam is based in Jaffna Sri Lanka, from where she concentrates on writing investigative, in-depth, articles on matters of social issues in post-war Sri Lanka.
Her writings cover challenges faced by post-war society on employment and out-migration, issues faced by women and children in patriarchal strongholds, and societal upheavals and conflicts in general. She also regularly intersperses her writing with positive news as she believes that good news should make the news too.
She is the only journalist writing in English to a mass audience to be based in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, and as such her dispatches are highly valued for their original content, from a region where people hunger for news, yet do not get enough of. She has traveled to, lived in, and worked in many parts of South Asia, including Sri Lanka, India and the Maldives. Living in conflict zones, escaping from conflict zones, and returning to work for redevelopment, reconciliation and peace in conflict zones are all part of her repertoire.
Her work is concentrated on understanding how partisan media divide communities – and thus working as an independent journalist to bridge that gap via ethical reporting and storytelling.
Understanding that mainstream media alone no longer reach the masses, she uses social media effectively too.
She has several followers on facebook where she founded the page Humans of Northern Sri Lanka (modeled on Humans of New York), to bridge the gap between the conflicted communities within her country – and without.
In conflict zones, narratives are often hijacked. Her work is dedicated to giving the voice back to the voiceless; the suppressed, the oppressed, the not-often heard voices, and the never-before heard voices. They speak. She reports.
