Together We Defeat- Together As ONE

Project “Together as ONE” is an initiative by Rotaract Club of Alumni of University of Moratuwa to contribute to social harmony in our society while resolving peace and eradicating all forms of social conflicts. This year the project was merged with the series “Together We Defeat” conducted to align the awareness of our community with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

This year the project was special as we were privileged to have two regional Rotaract Clubs onboard. Participants from Rotaract Club of Kurunegala and Rotaract Club of Rathnapura joined us to make the project a success.

The discussion topic of this years “Together As ONE” was: “Peace and conflict resolution during times of pandemic”.

The project was successfully held on the 08^th of May 2020 with the participation of more than 30 participants in the zoom platform. The audience consists of Rotaractors from many walks of life, ethnicities, representing many industries of work which led to increasing the diversity of the audience and the quality of the project.

After a round robin session to get to know the members a friendly discussion was held thereafter where the participants can answer and raise questions among themselves. The selected set of questions were raised by the moderator of the project Rtr. Shenali Welikala and the enthusiastic gathering voiced their thoughts.

The following discussion points were covered during the session,

• Impact to different industries in Sri Lanka and the impact on employment
• Challenges for fresh graduates to seek jobs in the industry
• Behaviour of the general public in certain situations and the acceptability of such behaviour (eg. The reaction when Navy officials were infected with the virus)
• Conflicts that rose between law enforcement and the general public regarding government regulations to control the pandemic.
• The best practice Crowd controlling
• Resisting arrest after violating curfew.
• Fighting and loosing humanness over groceries and other household items.
• Increase of Domestic violence casualties during lockdown
• Social media reporting sensitive information that can spark social conflicts.
• Potential depression attacks during lockdown for many individuals from different walks of life

With this we would like to extend our gratitude to all the participants of this project for speaking out loud and for your enthusiastic participation. Stay tuned for more Together As One projects in the future as we aspire to converse on many more topics that would cause social conflicts and thereby arrive at collaborative conclusions on how we as responsible youth can prevent conflicts and retain peace.

Rtr. Shenali Welikala