NPC and its partner Helvetas Sri Lanka carried out a two day virtual learning conference on Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) with international and local resource persons under its project Capacity Building for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) on PVE in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The initiative is being implemented across six districts with support from Helvetas Sri Lanka and funded by the European Union.

The role that religious clergy can play in bringing divided communities together cannot be under estimated.

Forty civil society representatives from Local Inter Religious Committees (LIRCS) in Weligama, Beruwala, Negombo, Akurana, Mannar, Rakwana, Kuliyapitiya, Batticaloa, Vavuniya, Trincomalee, Panduwasnuwara and Addalaichchenai participated in an online training programme on religious freedom and rule of law under NPC’s project Collective Engagement for Religious Freedom (CERF) facilitated by lawyer Jagath Liyana Arachchi.

Under its project Creative Youth Engagement for Pluralism, NPC conducted two days of training to teach over 130 students from the Eastern, Jaffna, Sabaragamuwa and Ruhuna universities about pluralism and community relations with a focus on how these topics related to their daily lives and to the Sri Lankan political and social situation.