User:Sajiprelis

Lakshitha Saji Prelis is currently the Director for Children & Youth Programs at Search for Common Ground. He is also the founding director of the Center for Peace Building International and till December 2010 served as a co-founder and Associate Director at American University's Peacebuilding & Development Institute. He has over fifteen years’ experience working with youth, youth movements and youth focused organizations in various conflict and transition environments. Some of the experiences include addressing alternatives to gang life in Los Angeles, developing programs for street children from Northern Uganda, and enhancing youth capacities in Nepal to programming for marginalized and conflict affected youth in Sri Lanka, assessing Thai-Burma border issues for youth, training in youth leadership in Georgia and Abkhazia and understanding the motivation for urban violence and crime among young people in Nigeria. He has over eighteen years of combined developing country experience from Africa to South and Southeast Asia. Saji has dedicated his academic and professional career to strengthening youth capacities for peace, and providing technical expertise in inter-generational peacebuilding and conflict-sensitive humanitarian and development practice in conflict and disaster affected settings.

His more than eleven years of experience at American University have resulted in the development of curriculum programs covering human rights, gender, media, monitoring and evaluation, conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Outside of his work at the university, Saji has served as an adviser to governments and governmental agencies from countries such as Nepal, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Haiti and Uganda, developing training programs, drafting policy frameworks, and designing community participation programs. He also has over ten years experience working with donor and non-profit organizations to focus on coordination, beneficiary accountability, conflict sensitive humanitarian practice, conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

Mr. Prelis spoke at the United Nations around Peacebuilding and Peacekeeping for UN and UN affiliated NGOs as part of the UN Day 2009 to acknowledge 61 years of UN Peacekeeping. He was the founding co-chair of an inter-agency working group titled Evaluating Youth Programs in Areas of Conflict and the Washington Network on Post Tsunami Reconstruction which was the first and only inter-agency coordinating mechanism in the US after the Tsunami.

Mr. Prelis obtained his Mater's Degree in International Peace & Conflict Resolution with a Concentration in International Law from the School of International Service at American University.