Interview - Sugi Kossen - Library Officer

Sugi talks about being a Library Officer, what it takes, what it means and how to do it.

My favourite quote of the episode is "My mother tongue is Tamil. 'cause I was born in Sri Lanka and there was another language in Sri Lanka. We had to learn Sinhalese. So my dad said, no, you had to learn that language and both languages and English. We have to learn English. So he made us study English all the time.

And so he would tell us, because I'm from a church back Christian background, so he said, alright, you learn Tamil at home in your Tamil Bible, go to the English Sunday school. So learn from that. So I had to go one, two, I think as a kid I would've said, oh, why is he doing that? But now I appreciate because I can understand.

And then he would take us to the British Council Library, and then the public library of Sri Lanka. And then there was so many libraries we had. Russian libraries and we had Chinese library, all the libraries, possible he would take us every Saturday, once a month. 

So we had books like that and you know, he'd come home and we could read and he, he introduced.

I really thank, I'm very grateful for my dad. He did that. And all my fam siblings say that, you know? And uh, yeah. When I think of him, I think, I mean, as a young person, I may not have appreciated all what he did, but now I really appreciate what he has done because I could pass that to my kids and I see that with my kids."