Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne

As Executive Director of Sarvodaya, Dr. Vinya has been responsible for the implementation of the island-wide integrated community health and social transformation programs of Sarvodaya through a network of over 50 district centers and training institutions, with a full time staff of over 800.  He created Sarvodaya’s Peace Secretariat, which contributed to the historic 2002 Cease-Fire Agreement.

He is a son of the legendary Dr A. T. Ariyaratne the founder and President of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka.

Dr. Vinya has been involved extensively in civil society peace and reconciliation initiatives in Sri Lanka. He has been trained as a professional facilitator for peace dialogues and he engages in teaching assignments related to peace building, conflict resolution and reconciliation. He has been a Visiting Faculty Member of the European Peace University (EPU) in n its Masters Degree Programme on Peace  Studies and holds a Visiting Lecturer post in the World Peace Academy (WPA) in Basel Switzerland in its Master of Peace Studies Degree Programme.

Dr. Vinya serves as the independent Lead Facilitator for the Sri Lanka One Text Initiative (OTI), a back channel multi-party political dialogue which aims at building consensus amongst key political stakeholders towards meeting the aspirations of all communities living in Sri Lanka.

[Dr. Vinya is coming to Portland in mid-April 2015, to engage in several peace events.]