Trincomalee and Batticaloa districts, where Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims live side by side in many areas, have been identified as potential hot spots for ethnic and religious conflict. There is higher possibility that these tensions could erupt with proposed government reforms such as truth and reconciliation mechanisms and constitutional reforms including power sharing.

NPC’s project, Inter-faith and Inter-ethnic Dialogue in Sri Lanka, is supporting inter-faith and inter-ethnic dialogue to reduce ethno-religious tensions and ensure that national reconciliation processes and policies take account of ethnic and religious viewpoints. Religious leaders in the Trincomalee and Batticaloa Districts are being empowered to better understand and contribute to policy advocacy at the local and national level.

Incidents of torture are widespread and recurrent in Sri Lanka despite there being constitutional protection against it and the adoption of the International Convention against Torture. The Government of Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) report contains key provisions related to combatting torture at all levels. However, these provisions are yet to be implemented in Police stations and Army camps around the country.

NPC commenced work on a EU-funded project to strengthen survivors of torture by promoting accountability and preventing torture. Asian Justice and Rights (AJAR), an NGO based in Indonesia, selected NPC to be its partner in Sri Lanka, together with partners in Myanmar, Aceh and Timor-Leste. NPC is implementing the two year project with selected local partners who specialise in the field of supporting torture victims.

Although they make up over half of the population and live in the country that elected the world’s first woman prime minister, women in Sri Lanka are poorly represented at the top of the decision making process. While often bearing the brunt of the country’s 30-year civil war, they are not consulted in post conflictpeace building activity.

In order to bring women’s perspectives into the national reconciliation process, NPC is implementing “Post-Conflict Healing: A Women’s Manifesto” with funding from FOKUS Women. FOKUS consists of 74 women's organizations from Norway that share a vision of women united to change the world, in which women's organizations form the basis for egalitarian societies free from oppression.

Write to Reconcile, a fiction writing project supported by NPC in conjunction with the internationally renowned Sri Lankan author Shyam Selvadurai, went into its second year after a successful first year.

The project brought together 24 emerging Sri Lankan writers who were interested in writing fiction, memoir or poetry in English on the issues of conflict, peace, reconciliation, memory and trauma, as they related to the civil war and the postwar period.