SDJF Promotes Diversity, Pluralism and Prevention of Violent Extremism Among Youth in Sri Lanka.

The conceptual training program under the  “Empowering youth-led initiatives in the
prevention of violent extremism” project commenced on November 11, 2022, at the Suisse
Hotel in Kandy with the participation of 38 university students ( 28 girls & 10 boys) from
Southeastern University ( 17) , Peradeniya University (10), and the University of Colombo
(10).

The program commenced with the welcome address by  Azad Mustaffa AAL, the Program
Director of SDJF and he explained the project objectives to the participants. At the end of the speech, an agreement was signed between participants and SDJF.
Azad in his speech said “Preventing violence and extremism is an important thing today in
Sri Lanka. For this program, we received more than 100 applications from different
students. Hence, I’d like to say that all of the students who participated in this program
today are extremely fortunate, as you chose us from a large group of applicants”.
Later, SDJF carried out a perception survey on prevention of violence extremism in Sri
Lanka among the participants.

The first day of the program jointly facilitated by Mr.Weerasingan and Azad Mustaffa
through an interactive method on diversity, pluralism, co-existence, gender and
understanding the driving factors of violence.

A student from Colombo University who participated in the program stated, "This is the first time we feel, as a Sinhalese minority, that this program truly reflects and experiences how minorities are facing challenges. From this, I will learn to respect minorities and support them".

In order to respond to that comment, a girl from the University of Peradeniya said, "I feel very happy to be a part of this workshop." We learned about ideologies, differences, and also learned how to deal with differences for the development of the country".

The seconday of the program was facilitated by Mr.Isbhan Sarafdeen on using tools to
identify misinformation, disinformation and fake news in online and also trained the students on online and digital safety.

The third and final day of the program was focused on understanding the violence cycle
through a storytelling approach and participants allowed to identified the driving factors of violence. Further, the participants also learned the components of nonviolence communication and communication approach to minimize violence.

The students will under go technical training on forum theatre and digital drama in the
coming months and expected to develop performances to share their learning with their peers and likeminded group widely and initiate dialogue among them.

The activity is a part of project EMPOWER to prevent violent extremism among Sri Lankan youth in the districts of Ampara, Colombo and Kandy in partnership with Helvetas Sri Lanka and funded by the Global Community Engagement for Resilience Fund (GCERF).

For more information, please visit www.ldjf.org