Social media has both negative and positive impacts. The misuse of social media can lead to conflicts in society but it also plays a role in addressing difficult issues. Under its Collective Engagement for Religious Freedom (CERF) project, NPC organized a webinar to enhance the skills and knowledge of youth to adopt social media platforms to establish religious coexistence.

The facilitator, Anidda editor Mr. K. W. Janaranjan, explained the importance of social media platforms and the features of traditional media. He focused on the responsibility of social media users including accurate reporting and apologies and corrections. He reiterated the need of active engagement of youth to counter misinformation in order to ensure religious coexistence.

A participant, Farhath Marikkar, stressed the need to learn about other religions to counter misinformation about other religions. “The NPC team is committed to enhancing religious coexistence but the opportunities to learn other religions are limited in the current context. But everyone must stand against social media posts that criticize religions,” Mr. Janaranjan said.

Another participant, M. Salman, said that as a multi ethnic country, everyone must promote pluralistic values through social media platforms. Ramesh from Ratnapura said that youth could be volunteers to ensure religious coexistence through the social media platforms.

Wasantha from Negombo expressed his gratitude for the discussions and suggested explaining the issues to rural youth to create awareness. The programme was a productive event that empowered youth to strengthen the religious coexistence through social media platforms.