By Meleeza Rathnayake
The Diana Award is considered the highest accolade a young person can achieve for social action or humanitarian efforts. Established in memory of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, the award is given out by the charity-of the same name with the support of both her sons, The Duke of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex.
Established in 1999, the Diana Award continues Princess Diana’s legacy by establishing a formal way to recognise young people who are going above and beyond the expected in their local communities.
Chiranthi Senanayake secured the award for Sri Lanka in 2020 for the very first time, and this year, there are three recipients for the Diana Award 2021 from Sri Lanka.
Yasara Ramanayake, Janith Perera, and Anojitha Sivaskaran – three young peacebuilders from Sri Lanka are honoured with the “Diana Award 2021” for going above and beyond in their daily life to create and sustain positive change. 
On Monday, 28 June 2021, the Virtual Diana Award Ceremony premiered on YouTube from 4 p.m. BST onwards with the distinguished presence of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex; board members and judges of the Diana Award; celebrities from around the world, and award recipients.
The three outstanding peacebuilders shared their journey in changemaking with Brunch:
“We congratulate all our new Diana Award recipients from the UK and all over the globe who are changemakers for their generation. We know by receiving this honour they will inspire more young people to get involved in their communities and begin their own journey as active citizens. For over 20 years The Diana Award has valued and invested in young people encouraging them to continue to make positive change in their communities and lives of others,” said The Diana Award CEO Tessy Ojo.
The Diana Award develops and inspires positive change in the lives of young people through three key programmes which include a mentoring programme for young people at risk, a youth-led anti-bullying ambassadors campaign, and a prestigious award which publicly recognises young people.
https://diana-award.org.uk
The Diana Award is considered the highest accolade a young person can achieve for social action or humanitarian efforts. Established in memory of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, the award is given out by the charity-of the same name with the support of both her sons, The Duke of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex.
Established in 1999, the Diana Award continues Princess Diana’s legacy by establishing a formal way to recognise young people who are going above and beyond the expected in their local communities.
Chiranthi Senanayake secured the award for Sri Lanka in 2020 for the very first time, and this year, there are three recipients for the Diana Award 2021 from Sri Lanka.
Yasara Ramanayake, Janith Perera, and Anojitha Sivaskaran – three young peacebuilders from Sri Lanka are honoured with the “Diana Award 2021” for going above and beyond in their daily life to create and sustain positive change. On Monday, 28 June 2021, the Virtual Diana Award Ceremony premiered on YouTube from 4 p.m. BST onwards with the distinguished presence of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex; board members and judges of the Diana Award; celebrities from around the world, and award recipients.
The three outstanding peacebuilders shared their journey in changemaking with Brunch:
| ‘An experiential learning journey about the community’: Yasara Ramanayake Yasara Ramanayake, a past pupil of Visakha Vidyalaya, is a graduate from the University of Kelaniya specialised in International Relations and simultaneously holds a LLB from the University of Wolverhampton. As a compassionate girl towards social service, she started her journey of helping others at a very early stage. Through the “Cousins Club” which was formed by the siblings and cousins of her family inspired her way forward for community development. Through various fundraising done within family and friends, the club was able to initiate many community projects. 2015 onwards she has been volunteering largely at many youth organisations in Sri Lanka. She was able to carry herself from being a volunteer to the national co-ordinator at The Road to Rights Youth-Led International Organisation, where she was able to ideate and lead impactful projects that affect the community at large. The major challenge Yasara faced in her journey was stigma. She said: “When it comes to human rights education, there is a lot of stigma evolving around it.” “Volunteerism is a wonderful phase of life. I see it as an experiential learning journey about the community. I invite all the school leavers and young people to join a course and volunteer. That experience will mold you and give you many valuable life experiences to perform better in life while contributing to a good cause for the people and planet,” she added. Yasara has been playing leading roles at various initiatives under The Road to Rights, joining multiple national and international level conferences, advocacy initiatives, and activities. Further, she led the children’s book project, working together with the late veteran Sybil Wettasinghe, to promote human rights education in Sri Lanka. However, due to her death last year the book was not published, but she looks forward to publishing it by the end of this year while honouring the legacy of Sybil Nanda. “This book was one of the last books which was illustrated by her, and it will certainly mark her legacy”, she said. |
 ‘Volunteering experiences changed my life’: Janith Prabashwara Perera
Janith Perera is a graduate in Conflict Resolution and Peace from the Department of International Relations, University of Colombo. He has completed his Masters Certificate in Executive Strategic Leadership Management from the Jacobbs-Abbey Global Institute for Leadership Studies in the US.
He is known as a peacebuilder and educator – using multiple approaches for peacebuilding work and contributing to peacebuilding as a peace advocate, activist, educator and researcher.
Further he is also a Member of the Asia Advocacy Team on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) Agenda hosted by UNOY and Former Researcher to the EU-funded South Asian Research Project “Amplifying the Leadership of Local Youth (ALLY)” in PVE and Peacebuilding. An Advocacy Team Leader at the UNFPA, he hosted the Youth Peace Panel of Sri Lanka, and he is the Director of Capacity Building at Citizens Youth-Led Movement.
Janith shared his journey: “In 2013, I got the opportunity to volunteer at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM 2013). In 2014, I got the opportunity to volunteer at the World Conference of Youth (WCY 2014). These two volunteering experiences changed my life. I was exposed to world leaders, the international community and youth from many countries around the world. When I saw the matters of international significance, youth matters and peace and reconciliation discussed, it grew in me an inner passion to work towards social work, youth empowerment, peace and reconciliation.”
Speaking about the obstacles Janith had to face, management of time with other priorities such as with education, family and work has been a main obstacle, it was learnt. Further, he said, limited financial capacities have affected him a lot. “For example, as a volunteer I have had incidents in which I had to cover my transport and food costs numerous times. Furthermore, for projects I initiated or mentored, I haven’t had enough funds to accomplish targets and goals,” he added.
Janith’s message to readers was: “I would like to invite all readers to volunteer their leisure time to charities and community organisations. Volunteerism connects you to people, especially when you meet people from diverse ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds – it is a platform for you to learn about others and to get rid of social stereotypes and prejudices.” |
Shaping the future together: Anojitha Sivaskaran
 Anojitha Sivaskaran is a youth and peace activist working with grassroots civil societies for four-plus years in Sri Lanka. As a person who was born in and lived through the worst phase of Sri Lanka’s internal war in the midst of the war zone, she is passionate about sustaining peace in the country.
She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Peace and Conflict Resolution from the University of Kelaniya, which focused on areas of conflict transformation, conflict management, peace, reconciliation and overcoming structural inequalities. Currently, she is working as a project officer at National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, specifically under the project called “Creative Youth Engagement for Pluralism”. This project capacitates selected state university students to raise awareness and positively influence the public discourse about pluralism and intercommunity relations in order to strengthen the reconciliation process in Sri Lanka.
She has been part of Interfaith Colombo, a volunteer youth network who works to promote peace by engaging different religious communities and enhancing mutual understanding for more than four years. She has also been serving as a core member of Global Refugee Education Council, part of Canada’s Together for Learning campaign – an international campaign to ensure that all refugee and displaced children can access the education they need and deserve.
Further, she has been selected as the Global Ambassador 2021 and the Country Ambassador of Sri Lanka for Youth Opportunities to facilitate and support young people around the world to find opportunities for their development through sharing of information. Her leadership and community work for building sustainable peace in the country has been recognised and acknowledged by several organisations and people at both local and global level.
She was invited as one of the discussants for a high-level UN75 dialogue on “Shaping Our Future Together”, a part of the UN 75th anniversary celebrations in Sri Lanka, where she shared a lot of her personal experiences and highlights on the current context of the country. She also moderated the third in a series of UN75 dialogue on shifting demographics, where representatives of IOM, UNHCR, and UN-Habitat took part as panelists. She has continued to speak in the many public forums and different media forums on several critical topics. |