Saummya Amarasinghe is a young peacebuilder, currently working as Senior Program Coordinator at Search for Common Ground (SFCG), Sri Lanka. Her focus is on empowering youth and women to collaboratively identify local issues on peace and security and collectively design responses in support of enhancing peaceful coexistence in their communities. Her work also involves training youth on identifying hate speech and fake news to promote positive content on social media.

Saummya holds an MSc in International Relations from Kingston University, United Kingdom. Her engagement in peacebuilding is fuelled by her passion to work in the humanitarian sector and bridge the gap between grassroots communities, policymakers and decision-makers to support collective efforts to promote social cohesion and reconciliation.

She started her career as a Project Officer at the Sri Lanka Development Journalists Forum (SDJF) where she worked with children, youth and grassroots communities on various community media projects including Forum Theatre, Community Video Storytelling and Radio Drama Storytelling which focused on the idea of ‘Rejecting Violence and Promoting Dialogue’. Later she joined the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka (NPC) as a Senior Project Officer undertaking interreligious work with groups including District Interreligious Committees, youth, women, disabled persons, journalists, community leaders and political leaders. By initiating training workshops, creating awareness, organising advocacy campaigns, cross exchange visits, social cohesion activities, intra- and interreligious dialogues, Saummya aims to mitigate communal violence and strengthen interreligious community engagement for reconciliation and to create awareness,

Saummya was a scholarship recipient of the Women Deliver Conference 2019 held in Vancouver. She also received a scholarship for the 41st Annual International Human Rights Training Program (IHRTP) held by EQUITAS in 2020. Saummya became a fellow of the Interfaith Fellowship Program, ‘’Southeast Asia: Advancing Inter-Religious Dialogue and Freedom of Religion or Belief’’, organised by the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers in 2020.

Saummya’s motto is: “An inclusive society can be built when identity is accepted, and diversity is respected”.