Collectives for Coexistence

During the year 2015, after formation and establishment of Good Governance, Coalition Government coming into the power, the international communities and the Sri Lankan government were interested in establishing sustainable peace in the country. After three decades of civil war, based on this requirement, this government initiated to implement 32/1 UNHCR recommendations in the country to pay justice for the victims. In the meantime, Institute of Social Development (ISD) and International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC) implemented a project on Transitional Justice to strengthen the government process of Transitional Justice mechanism with the support of Secretariat for Coordination on Reconciliation mechanism (SCRM).

ISD and ICSC initially conducted few focus group discussions with victim widows of affected families, similar discussion was conducted with Ministry Secretaries, District Secretaries, Head of Sri Lanka Police, Military Services and selected civil society leaders along with Minister for Reconciliation and National Unity. As an outcome, it was decided to form a network in the country consisted of Civil Society Organizations to carry out and strengthen the government transitional justice mechanism establishing the sustainable peace in the country. This network was named as Truth and Reconciliation Forum (TRF) covering 25 districts of Sri Lanka.

Since 2016, the Truth and Reconciliation Forum was strengthening the civil societies in reconciliation and promoting sustainable peace among communities by conducting awareness programmes and activities at district level.

In 2019 ISD decided to expand its activities at village level by forming and establishing Village Solidarity Forums (VSF) under Truth and Reconciliation Forums (TRF) to conduct awareness at the grassroot level to disseminate the message on coexistence and reconciliation and lobbying their grassroot level issues to the relevant authorities. In the meantime, ISD conducted coexistence and reconciliation activities for selected Directors, In Service Advisors, School Principals, on the request of the Department of Education of Central Province. A special training was initiated by ISD on Conflict Resolution targeting three-wheel drivers.

During Covid’19 pandemic ISD conducted all its planned activities with support of virtual platform and the TOT trainings are being conducted for TRF and VSF members.