Centre for Peacebuilding and Reconciliation - CPBR

We empower and guide voices from the community to create nationwide social change. We are a community of activists, social practitioners, community and religious leaders. We are woman, man, old, young, religious, secular, Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Christian. We promote peacebuilding, reconciliation and non-violent conflict transformation across all diverse ethnic and religious divides in Sri Lanka through dialogue and action. Our work is based on inter-dependence: the idea that nothing could exist on its own. We create safe spaces for people to go beyond ethnicity and religion, and engage in a collective effort to address their common needs and transform their communities. WE BELIEVE THAT SOCIAL CHANGE STARTS AT THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL, FROM THE BOTTOM UP. Through inner dialogue and self-transformation, people can mobilize their communities to actively contribute to a more equal and just society. Our main tools to facilitate personal transformation, capacity development, confidence building include visual arts, crafts, and sustainable living. They create psychological and physical spaces and systems enabling people to come together as inter-ethnic inter-religious groups and to inspire them to make collective decisions and drive them to action. THIS IS A LONG PROCESS, BUILDING TRUST TAKES TIME. Since 2002, we have been exploring creative ways to bring communities together and facilitate processes to strengthen their capacity to collaborate with one another, to deconstruct the social cultural and political divides within and around them, and to take their voices to the opinion and policy making level.