Christine Dissanayake is a program assistant working for the Media Empowerment for a Democratic Sri Lanka (MEND) program, which is aimed at improving citizens' access to balanced, reliable, and objective news and information in Sri Lanka.

In her role, she coordinates with designated media outlets, partner organizations, service providers, consultants and individuals, and assists the smooth implementation of MEND activities.

Prior to joining IREX, she worked at Search for Common Ground where she supported projects on strengthening peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka through raising youth’s capacity to recognize hate speech and advance peaceful co-existence and reconciliation on social media. Prior to that, she worked at DAI Global LLC for the Strengthening Democratic Governance & Accountability project (SDGAP), supporting all operations and administrative activities of the M&E team as the M&E assistant.

Christine is fluent in Sinhala and English. She holds a bachelor of arts in English studies: theory & practice from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and a postgraduate diploma in monitoring & evaluation from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. Currently, she is pursuing a master of arts in international relations at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.