HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF SRI LANKA, Annual Report 2019 sensitize the youth on Human Rights in order to foster a strong human rights culture in the country and to ensure the youth become proactive citizens. The 5-day Youth Camp was held at the MAS fabric Park Thulhiriya from 5-9 December 2019 on the theme “Words Hurt: Youth Reflections on Hate Speech”. This residential program saw approximately 56 youth leaders representing various ethnicities, cultures, and religions drawn from all 25 districts in the country taking part in a variety of interactive sessions designed to explore the theme. The participants were selected through a public call for applications. The Youth Camp commenced with an introductory session on Democratic Life: ‘Perceiving the world in a democratic way’. The following days unfolded along themes such as diversity and pluralism, deconstructing constructed identity as a solution to discrimination, ethics of social media, power of words, leadership, and climate change and sustainable development. The Camp saw many interactive discussions, theatrical performances, A theatrical performance at screening of videos, and other practical activities the Youth Camp 2019 taking place, conceptualized to instill human rights based values in the youth of Sri Lanka. The food festival provided an opportunity for the participants to prepare and present food from different culinary traditions underscoring the diversity and pluralism of our society, while the fire camp was designed to develop effective methods of communicating their understanding of human values to the society. The participants were also requested to design social media campaigns to counter the impact of hate speech and to present these at the finale. Further, they were required to draft an individual action plan on how they intend to work with the HRCSL in the future. ▪ Other awareness programmes The Commission also conducted many other awareness-raising programmes such as: 80