Opening her Lankan chapter by empowering youth with English
British Council’s new Country Director Gill Caldicott talks to Purnima Pilapitiya
Trips to the library were an important part of Gill Caldicott’s childhood. Together with her mother, Gill would pay regular visits to her school and local libraries- traditions she would revisit with her own son. “Reading was a big part of my life,” she says, and as the new Country Director of the British Council Sri Lanka, Gill has several exciting plans for the well known library and learning centre.
Despite being in office for less than a month, Gill already has much to say about her new residence and work environment, her visits to Jaffna and Kandy, and Sri Lankan wildlife- nature being one of her passions. Another is, as we soon discover, travel. The thirst for learning about people and cultures were some of Gill’s yearnings that directed her to the British Council in the first place, almost 22 years ago. Having lived in Trinidad and Tobago as a child, Gill’s wanderlust was further fuelled as an adult.
Armed with a degree in English literature, she chose to be an English language teacher upon graduating in the 70’s. “My job gave me the opportunity to travel,” she explains, and soon the 20-something graduate found herself working at her very first job at the British Council in Damascus, Syria. The place is one that makes her face light up when she talks about her time there - the art, culture and anthropology clearly fascinated her.
She soon found herself globetrotting, working in British Council offices in Egypt, London, Hong Kong and India as well as being Director Operations in several British Council offices.
For Gill, her new chapter in Sri Lanka which opened on August 12 has already found her working towards her goal of increasing employability of Sri Lankan youth. “People recognize that in order to move forward in their lives they need the English language,” she says, gliding into the library which, on a Tuesday morning is punctuated by the soft turnings of pages and shuffling of books being moved from shelves by enthusiastic readers. We later learn that the library of the British Council plays host to 25,000 members.
“Libraries in the UK have transformed,” she tells us, a stitch in the larger tapestry of what she calls a “library revolution” which has redefined the space and tradition of libraries and reading. “We want to bring that to Sri Lanka.”
Her first visit to Jaffna was coincidentally timed with the Nallur festival. Mingling with several diaspora writers, Gill hopes to create “prosperity” through their interactions as an educational body. She also had an opportunity to meet with members of the library and parents. Finding that the most borrowed books were the IELTs material, at the meetings she organised she realised that the most enthusiastic are the parents- “they want their children to have a proper education.”
The future hopes to find the British Council supporting the Ministry of Education in their endeavours to train and support teachers and teacher trainers, thus adding to the potential of employability as well enhancing the platform of higher education, giving more young people opportunities of studying and developing English language skills. Library members may even get the chance to borrow books at the touch of a screen with plans for a digital library. While Gill admits to enjoying the comforting feel of a book, the concept of a digital library on a practical level will allow members access to material without having to travel the distance.
In the short time she has been in Sri Lanka, the strength of Sri Lanka’s youth population has caught her attention. For Gill, her focus is both the vast scope of potential as well as the reflec- tion of a greater need for higher education and employment opportunities for young people that she hopes to see fulfilled through the British Council.