Two workshops on Non Violent Communication (NVC) were held in Kandy and Moratuwa for 77 members of District Inter Religious Committees (DIRCs) representing 16 districts under NPC’s project Consolidating Ongoing Multi-level Partnership Actions for Conflict Transformation (COMPACT) funded by MISEREOR and CAFOD.

The workshops were facilitated by two trainers from the Centre for Non Violent Communication. Each three day session consisted of activities such as role plays and sharing experiences and difficulties in working as a peace activist.

The purpose of the training was to enable DIRC members to use methods and techniques of NVC when intervening to diffuse tense situations arising from ethnic and religious discord, as well as to apply these measures in their personal lives.

Participants were taught the four steps of NVC to improve the quality of their intervention measures.

A participant from Jaffna said, “I was able to gain a basic knowledge of NVC and I will be able to share the elements of the concept with the other DIRC members. It will be helpful to learn more about it. The workshop will be useful for school children, youth, police officers and politicians.”

A local government representative from Anuradhapura said, “This is one of the most important training programmes I have attended. NVC is very important for politicians because today they are the ones who are responsible for much of the hate speech and racism in the country.”

A woman participant said, “As a woman I face violence in my life on a daily basis. The training made a big impact in my life because it taught me how to deal with the violence. NVC Training should be taken to people in the village because much of the violence occurs there. Government workers, community leaders and religious leaders need NVC.”