A training programme on trauma counselling for 17 Befrienders of the Gampaha Human Rights First Aid Centres (HRFACs) was held under NPC’s Accountability through Community Engagement and Initiatives for Transition (ACE-IT) project, conducted by Senior Counsellor and Trainer, Sister Canice.

Ten training programmes on conflict analysis and management for state officials and religious leaders were conducted by master trainers under NPC’s project Technical Assistance to Justice Institutions in Sri Lanka in Badulla, Monaragala, Kandy, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa.

Under the Social Cohesion and Reconciliation (SCORE) Activity, NPC organized five training programmes on Resilient Communities Through Everyday Democracy to enhance the participants' basic understanding of democratic values, review lessons from past training and identify key issues for creating a values-based democratic society.

As the new year dawns the government appears to be moving in the direction of more inclusivity in both domestic and foreign policy. The most contentious domestic political issue over the past nine months, and growing in intensity to include public demonstrations, has been that of the disposal of bodies of persons who succumb to the coronavirus. The Sri Lankan claim to be exceptional in the world in respect of the practice of enforced cremation has been met with the opposition and increasingly public agitation of the Muslim community to whom burial is a matter of religious faith and is a human right guaranteed under the constitution and international law. Until recently the experts in the medical and scientific field consulted by the government and elevated to government committees were adamant in taking the position that burials should not be permitted on safety grounds.