About Us

Community Friends’ mission and programs are built on a 29-year history between our founding director, Carsten Henningsen, and a Sri Lankan community service non-profit organization called Sadaham Mithuru Samuluwa. The association and friendship first started in 1980 when Carsten traveled to Kandy, Sri Lanka through a joint program at the University of Puget Sound in Washington, USA and Sri Lanka’s University of Peradeniya.

Community Friends’ relief efforts began in Sri Lanka during the days immediately following the 2004 tsunami, when Carsten traveled with our co-founders, Deva and Seevali Ratnakara, to provide relief work in a remote village devastated by the disaster. When Carsten returned to the United States in 2005, Community Friends was formed as a non-profit organization with founders and directors from Sri Lanka and the United States. In 2009, Community Friends also became a non-profit organization in Sri Lanka.

Since the tsunami, Community Friends’ strategies continue to focus on high-impact investments in land restoration, village collectives, social businesses, and micro-entrepreneurs, providing critical access to capital and helping people overcome poverty by creating sustainable livelihoods. In all of our work, we strive to build long-term relationships that are direct and personal.