Ladies, Wine and Design - Colombo

⭐ Moderator Profile

Sharanya identifies as a feminist writer, researcher and activist. She holds an LLB (Hons) and a Masters in Conflict and Peace Studies.

Currently she works with The Grassrooted Trust as their Program Manager. Grassrooted is also a part of the partnership that runs bakamoono.lk of which Sharanya is the English Editor – an online portal in Sinhala, Tamil and English on sexual and reproductive health and rights, ensuring that people can access information in a language they understand. Grassrooted advocates for age-appropriate relationship education in schools, based on the fundamentals of respect for self, other, and difference

Sharanya also independently works as a project/program consultant, campaigner, activist, trainer/teacher, and researcher in the areas of sexual and reproductive health education, gender-based and intimate partner violence, online gender-based violence, gender education and workplace sexual harassment. She has worked with state institutions, local, regional and international civil society organizations and NGO ‘s, and private sector organizations in her work. This has included The British Council, Oxfam in Sri Lanka and the Association for Progressive Communications.

Sharanya as a writer has been published on several print and digital media outlets locally, regionally and internationally including The F Bomb. She also writes a fortnightly column ‘The F Word’ for The Weekend Express in Sri Lanka and is regularly published on bakamoono.lk. You can find her on her blog ‘Writing From That Sekaram Girl’ and on Twitter

⚡Speaker Profile

Ravini Jinadasa is a self proclaimed digital evangelist who began her career in digital advertising in London. Having spent her entire twenties and her early thirties abroad, she decided to pen down her reverse culture shock stories on her return to Sri Lanka.

What began as a fun thing to do with her friend Dinesh, film maker of Mathawaada fame, ended up becoming a online video series called “Tell me Shiela” which got Colombo talking for it’s controversial content.

Ravini is now plotting yet another controversial script in the little spare time she gets from her responsibilities of heading the digital unit at Bates Strategic Alliance Sri Lanka