In Sri Lanka, dispute resolution and mediation are transforming communities. Manisha Amerasinghe tells us how choosing dialogue over division is resolving longstanding conflicts and rebuilding trust.
In a small, bustling village in the north of Sri Lanka, a woman called Tharmini takes her seat at the local mediation board.
Around her sit men three times her age, respected elders of the community. Tharmini’s presence is more than symbolic: she is the first female chairperson of the Nallur Mediation Board (Nallur is a suburb of the city of Jaffna).
She’s there to resolve a dispute over shared land – which has divided some families for years. By the end of the session, there are no raised voices. Just nods and agreement, and resolution.
Stories like Tharmini’s lie at the heart of Supporting Effective Dispute Resolution (SEDR) – a five-year project funded by the European Union and implemented by the British Council, in partnership with The Asia Foundation.
Dispute resolution in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has a diverse population – Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers (descendants from Europeans who colonised or settled in what was then called ‘Ceylon’). They speak different languages, practice different religions, and carry the weight of a 30-year conflict that ended in 2009.
While the war may be over, the echoes of conflict remain: land disputes, ethnic tension and intergenerational trauma. But there’s also a quiet revolution brewing.
Young people across Sri Lanka are reclaiming their future by choosing dialogue over division, and the British Council is helping through mediation.
Sri Lanka has one of the largest mediation systems of its kind globally, with nearly 9,000 volunteer mediators resolving hundreds of thousands of disputes each year.
The British Council’s Supporting Effective Dispute Resolution (SEDR) project operated in Sri Lanka for five years. We trained mediators, supported young people, and worked with local non-profit organisations to help communities and local authorities talk to each other and resolve disputes.
The impact the programme has made is evident in the 12 stories in the SEDR: Stories of Impact publication. Each story is a window into a life transformed – by dialogue and trust.
Mediation in schools
To help embed a culture of peaceful dialogue from a young age, we also worked with nearly 2,000 school students and 300 educators across Sri Lanka to introduce school-based mediation units.
Thushari Balasuriya began her career as a Mediation Programme Officer in 2005. She describes how taking a chance with one child demonstrated how the programme not only makes change for communities, but can also help at a personal level:
“Normally the ones chosen to mediate are the smarter, more conscientious children, but this time we decided to take a chance with this one boy. In the beginning he kept disrupting the training, but we were patient.
“One day he spoke to me and told me his problems, he did not have parents and lived with his grandmother and felt very angry about his situation, particular in comparison to his other school mates.
“Working with us on school mediation eventually helped him gain a sense of purpose and his own struggles helped him to empathise more. We watched as he began to improve after this; in his studies and overall manner."
Active Citizens and dispute resolution
We have successfully delivered our Active Citizens social leadership training methodology worldwide for more than 10 years, promoting intercultural dialogue and community-led social development, and building trust within and between communities.
The Active Citizens strand of the SEDR programme showed how young people can lead the way in strengthening social cohesion. Through dispute resolution training for more than 200 women and young people, we helped them connect their local social action to broader national narratives of peacebuilding.
The Active Citizens part of the programme saw fisherfolk in a small village come together to improve dialogue and understanding. They established an action committee to oversee maintenance of their boat anchorage area and canal, ensuring shared responsibility and smoother operations.
Lives transformed
Amirunnisha, a single mother and social activist from the Northern Province, has worked tirelessly to bridge divides in her community.
In 1991, when she was four, her family – along with the entire local Muslim community – were forcibly displaced from their homes by the civil war. Then, when she was married, she was abused and eventually left her husband. This was a brave thing to do in a conservative society.
Amirunnisha and her children now live with her parents and siblings, and she works as a coordinator for preschools and as a seamstress. But because she’s so involved in community rights issues, she prefers to identify herself as a social activist.
She is a strong advocate for women carving their own paths to success. She said: “It might be much harder for us, but we need to persist.”
Then there’s Jayasekara, a community leader in the Uva Province, who helped solve a water-sharing dispute in his village without ever stepping foot in a court.
He described the impact the programme had on him personally: “I have changed the way I act and react to many things, and I feel this has strengthened my commitment and widened my perspective on things.
“I believe that some of these skills should be learned by everyone and even taught in schools. If people can learn healthy ways of managing disputes, our society can develop very fast.”
And there’s Tharmani, who we started this piece with, who had this to say: “Our communities have faced much hardship, and it is important to build harmony. While court systems and the police are the usual avenues to seek redress for disputes, these processes are punitive. Mediation on the other hand can help resolve matters in a mutually beneficial manner.”
These stories bring home what the numbers alone cannot. For the British Council, SEDR represents what we do best: creating space for dialogue, trust and shared futures. And in countries like Sri Lanka – complex, resilient, and full of potential – that makes all the difference.