WOICE capacitates, mentors, and strengthens a group of 42 female super activists (selected sub-national female civic leaders) involved in the ongoing movement to reform the state structure and introduce a system change in its 15-month programme. This initiative provides an opportunity to develop the framework of a more just and inclusive society in which the rights of political participation and decision-making power by women of all ethnic and religious groups are strengthened. These super activists represent the districts of Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Matara, Monaragala, Kegalle, Ratnapura, and Gampaha.

ARC targets the engagement of religious leaders, state officials, community policing units, integration structure of the state, and youth in 14 Local Inter-Religious Committees (LIRCs) to sustain religious freedom within the framework of pluralism and Rule of Law over a period of 40 months starting January 2022. The LIRCs targeted are Vavuniya Town in Vavuniya district, Mannar Town in Mannar district, Akurana in Kandy district, Beruwala in Kalutara district, Negombo in Gampaha district, Weligama in Matara district, Addalachenai in Ampara district, Godakawela in Ratnapura district, Kattankudy in Batticaloa district, Trincomalee Town in Trincomalee district, Panduwasnuwara in Kurunegala district Kuliyapitiya in Kurunegala district, Mawanella in Kegalle district, and Bandarawela in Badulla district.

NPC’s project, Consolidating Ongoing Multi-Level Partnership Actions for Conflict Transformation (COMPACT) is a continuation of the NPC’s Initiating Multi-level Partnership Action for Conflict Transformation (IMPACT) project that ended in Septmeber last year. 

NPC has launched a project in collaboration with Global Communities, the Association of War Affected Women and Shanthiham Association for Health and Counselling to set up local reconciliation platforms at the community level and empowering them to be part of the reconciliation process in the country.

In 2010, NPC set up eight District Inter Religious Committees (DIRCs) to address an increase in inter religious and inter ethnic disharmony at the end of the war. Through a project entitled Religions to Reconcile, NPC is continuing its work with new members of six existing DIRCs and two DIRCs established specifically through the project in the Northern Province.

The project is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Government’s development agency, and is being implemented in partnership with Generations for Peace (GFP), an international peace building organization based in Amman, Jordan. GFP specializes in peace building and conflict transformation training and will assist NPC in building and establishing a cadre of peace delegates to support future project activities.

The UN Peace Building Fund, under its Gender and Youth Promotion Initiative (GYPI), has awarded a grant to NPC for a project to promote gender-responsive and youth-inclusive peace building in Sri Lanka.

The project, Youth and Transitional Justice for Long-lasting peace in Sri Lanka, will run until May 2019 in collaboration with the implementing partners, Legal Action Worldwide, Harvard International Human Rights Clinic, the Universities of Sri Lanka.

The Accountability Through Community Engagement and Initiatives for Transition (ACE–IT) Project supported by the European Union (EU) began in February 2018 and has three objectives: to mobilise civil society to utilise available mechanisms, new and existing, to hold the state accountable and vindicate the victim rights; to have orient targeted state institutions and actors in ethos for change; and to advocate for continued state action on accountability.

Despite the end Sri Lanka’s 30-year civil war, the underlying causes of tension have not been addressed. While seen mainly as a conflict between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, religion has also been used by politicians and others with vested interests to stoke up communal fears and create insecurity and mistrust.

The latest target of radical Buddhist priests and hard-line Sinhala Buddhists has been the Muslim community, which is being subject to violent attacks on people and property, including mosques. In many instances, the police have stood by and watched instead of protecting the victims, in response to orders from high level government officials. In addition, allegations of conversions by Christian groups have led to violence at the local level against small Christian churches. Again, police failed to act because local people were in support of the attacks.

The Initiating Multi Level Partnership Action for Conflict Transformation (IMPACT) project builds on the EU and SPICE/USAID supported project Reconciling Inter Religious Differences (RIID), which operated from 2010 to 2016. It is expanding the target groups beyond the religious clergy to reach out to influential civil society groups such as academics, entrepreneurs and provincial media. IMPACT, which began in 2015, is funded by MISEREOR and CAFOD.

The project directly targets university academics, journalists, professionals, members of civil society organizations (CSOs) and national level religious leaders and district level religious leaders, the communities that they serve, members of the public and youth.