Under NPC’s Initiating Multi-level Partnership for Conflict Transformation (IMPACT), a series of workshops were conducted highlighting the theme of early warning for members of District Inter Religious Committees (DIRCs) in Badulla, Kurunegala, Polonnaruwa, Ratnapura and Hambantota.

They are being trained on how to recognise impending conflicts and how to respond. Topics include the basic elements and various stages of a conflict, how to do conflict analysis using conflict mapping and, later at the field level, how to take necessary action to protect their community from escalated violations and to support post war transition.

Following a training of trainers workshop in July for selected members, they are being provided with a more broad based training to ensure that conflicts in their areas are resolved before they escalate through their interventions which are of a mitigatory nature.

The first element in this training is in early warning to help them identify the tensions within their communities that may be lying beneath the surface. Adjuncts to this early warning training are other specialised trainings in conflict analysis and in analysing stakeholder responses.