There is nothing complicated about the success of the Butterfly Peace Garden program in the troubled district of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka – it simply works. For more than a decade, war and tsunami-affected children have been coming to the Garden space to play, sing, laugh and through creative expression, begin the healing process. For many children, this is the only safe place they have where they can just be kids. Father Paul Satkunanayagam, Director of the Garden, refers to them as ‘butterflies’ because, as he explains, they are so beautiful and also so very fragile.

In 2004, the Asian tsunami wrought considerable damage on a region already devastated by twenty-five years of civil war. Sri Lankans who were displaced by the conflict and the tsunami have lost family members, friends and communities. Disruption of livelihoods activities and education has left many children without the kind of formal and community support needed to recover from the trauma they’ve experienced.

The Butterfly Peace Garden is a semi-structured psychosocial program that uses art, theatre, music and story-telling to share messages of tolerance, peace, respect and cooperation. It gives children an opportunity to express their experiences in a safe and risk-free environment without fear of reprise or judgment.

When you visit the Garden, it feels a lot like summer camp. There are activity centers, filled with crafts, paints and homemade instruments. Kids of all sizes are running around the sand-filled yard, through the gardens, and in and out of the many colourful sculptures and structures that make up this creative landscape.

But if you look a little bit closer, what you’ll see is a group of children who have seen more than their share of hardship, and had less than their share of childhood. You’ll also see a very well-trained, knowledgeable and talented staff of ‘animators’, whose dedication to helping vulnerable children is unwavering.

Many of the animators at the Garden are former participants of the program and understand the challenges these kids face. They lead the process of healing by listening to and observing each child and giving them the guidance and support they need. Most of the activities are done in small groups, where each child can participate and be heard. When a child needs more personal and focused attention, senior animators will take them aside for some one on one time. Home visits allow animators to get a better sense of the individual experience of each child and help parents to get more involved in the process.

Sometimes follow-up home visits reveal an ongoing need, as was the case with nine year-old Rapanshana. She came to the Butterfly Peace Garden satellite centre at Thiraimadu – a temporary settlement area for tsunami victims – when she was eight years old. She had no father or siblings and her mother worked all day, leaving her with her elderly grandparents. She did not speak a word when she first arrived.

Over the course of the 6 month program, Rapanshana slowly started, word by word, to open up – she began to sing and liked to work with clay. After her program was finished, animators from the Garden visited her home to check on her progress. They found that she was experiencing difficulties at school and had started to crawl back into her shell. She returned to the Garden to continue with the psychosocial program that was so instrumental in helping her to overcome her fears and insecurities. Rapanshana now speaks about her experience at the Garden quietly and with confidence, “Before I used to be angry and beat on things. Sometimes people. Now I like to sing and tell stories to my friends.”

Rapanshana is just one example of many children who have found refuge in the Butterfly Peace Garden from the hardships experienced by their communities. Parents tell of how their children have benefited from the program – they do better in school, they are calmer at home and are more respectful of their families, they smile more and make new friends easily. The program also provides an important opportunity for children from Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala communities to come together in an environment of respect and tolerance.

It is difficult to quantify the importance to these children of having the space, security and freedom to be kids. The ‘butterflies’ of the Garden express themselves freely and creatively, but they are also provided with the support and guidance that trauma-affected children need. It’s really that simple.