NPC organized a seven day training on Community-based Social Cohesion and Reconciliation for Community Facilitators under its project Social Cohesion and Reconciliation (SCORE) for 34 participants from the Jaffna, Trincomalee, Vavuniya and Moneragala districts.

SCORE is funded by USAID and implemented by Global Communities, in partnership with the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka (NPC), the Association of Women Affected by War (AWAW) and Shanthiham: Association for Health and Counselling and aims to strengthen efforts to advance social cohesion and reconciliation.

Most of the participants represented the government sector while some came from civil society organizations. The training, which was conducted by Partners in Alternative Training (PALTRA), focused on participatory tools on a community-based approach to implement social cohesion and reconciliation related activities in grass root level communities.

M.Surenthar, Grama Niladhari of Pattikudiyiruppu and Aanandapuliyankulam of Vavuniya North Division said, “This knowledge will definitely help me to keep my community away from conflicts. I am working in a border village where different ethnic and religious people live together. I can lead these people to find solutions for the conflicts between them. In the other village I work, there is a caste problem. The low caste people working as labourers feel that they are being suppressed. In future it might become a big issue. I hope I can find solutions for these issues with the knowledge I gained from this training.”

Inoka Sanjeevani, Counselling officer of the Buttala DS Division said, “Before we had the training, we didn’t realise we should deeply analyse conflicts in our area. Today we understood that we can identify the conflicts from the beginning itself. We definitely need this knowledge to strengthen reconciliation in the grassroots communities.”