Sri Lanka’s Centre for Peace Building and Reconciliation to get 33rd Niwano Peace Prize

TOKYO: The Niwano Peace Foundation will award the 33rd Niwano Peace Prize to the Centre for Peace Building and Reconciliation (CPBR) in Sri Lanka for its work to build trust and social ties that are key to reconciliation and peace in a country torn by the long civil war that ended in 2009.

An award presentation ceremony will take place in Tokyo on 12 May at 10:30 a.m.In addition to an award certificate, CPBR representatives will receive a medal and a cash prize of 20 million yen.

The CPBR, a nonprofit organisation promoting peacebuilding, peacemaking and nonviolent conflict transformation, was founded in 2002 by attorney Dishani Jayaweera, who quit her profession to create a peaceful and just society, and university professor Jayantha Seneviratne, a recognised expert on conflict resolution. 

According to Dishani, reconciliation is best advanced by a group of people from diverse backgrounds coming together to lead the way through example and encouragement, rather than only through social movements led by and dependent on a few individuals. It is the CPBR family’s collective efforts that have had an impact in Sri Lanka and provide an inspiration for peacebuilding in the wider world. Therefore, the CPBR’s whole organisational team is being awarded the Niwano Peace Prize.

The Niwano Peace Foundation established the Niwano Peace Prize to honour and encourage individuals and organisations that have contributed significantly to inter-religious cooperation, thereby furthering the cause of world peace, and to make their achievements known as widely as possible. 

The foundation hopes in this way both to enhance inter-religious understanding and cooperation and to encourage the emergence of still more persons devoted to working for world peace. The prize is named in honourof the founder and first President of the lay Buddhist organisation Rissho Kosei-kai, Nikkyo Niwano.

The Niwano Peace Foundation was chartered in 1978 to contribute to the realisation of world peace and the enhancement of a culture of peace. The foundation promotes research and other activities based on a religious spirit and serves the cause of peace in such fields as education, science, religion and philosophy.