Prevent Youth Radicalisation Erasmus Project

Project Title

Prevent Youth Radicalisation

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Ethics, religion and philosophy (incl. Inter-religious dialogue); Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Most young people pass successfully through to adulthood and deal well with the challenges involved in growing up. However, for a critical minority, adolescence is a time when serious problems emerge or earlier difficulties escalate. They may have difficulties at school, lack good role models or the resilience to deal with new pressures or risks. Maybe they were confronted with alienation from a part of the population and experienced discrimination and open or hidden racism. Since they do not see positive social and professional perspectives, a raising number succumbs to the false promises of extremist ideologies, such as Neo-Nazi groups or the „Islamic State“.

The consequences of not getting support can be very serious. „The best prevention is to stop people from getting involved in violent extremist or terrorist activities in the first place, or to convince them to turn away from such ideas and methods…. The people best placed to tackle the phenomenon of radicalisation are the so called first-liners – people in direct contact with targeted individuals or vulnerable groups of population“ (Radicalisation Awareness Network of the European Commission).

These „first-liners“ need therefore new skills and competences to be better prepared to deal with intercultural tensions between diverse groups of learners and detect, at an early stage, indicators of radicalisation among their learners. However, many of them have had their vocational education years ago, and many of them are completely or partially unprepared to the changes in the way in which our society is organized and which conceptual aspects of radicalisation pose a threat.

We will raise their awareness and identify initiatives, best practice examples and tools that help them do their work better, for example, to help find out who is at risk and the best way of helping people who need support. What tools and methods are available and most effective to provide this support? Who has undergone traumatic experience and shows a behaviour that is a consequence of post-traumatic stress disorder? How can a teacher detect such symptoms?

The overall objectives are to identify and collect evidence-based approaches, initiatives, programmes and methods that show how to
• make youth and vocational counselling services more attractive and to contribute to de-radicalisation.
• counteract the negative effects of alienation that occurs frequently to adolescents and which often prepares the path to join groups with extreme ideologies, be it Neo-Nazi, the Islamic State or other terrorist movements
• encourage young people to think critically about extremist messages
• provide vocational teachers and counsellors with best practice about effective tools and methods, in order to help them do their work better

In order to reach this objective, the specific objectives are

1)
To implement an e-platform with an interactive database, searchable after various parameters, that describes and gives access to initiatives, tools and methods and other materials that have been identified and collected in the course of the project, concerning awareness raising, training activities and didactic tools combating radicalisation that can be used by vocational teachers, trainers and counsellors. The database will have explanations in the languages of the partnership.

2)
To elaborate a Catalogue “Prevention of Youth Radicalisation in Practice” which will give an overview about the current situation of the specific project environment in the partners’ countries, i.e. provide effective support to help vulnerable young people and to prevent them from being drawn into terrorist organisations and movements. It will be enriched with the outcomes of the transnational meetings of the four meetings in each partner country where experts from the respective national and local vocational counselling organisations will discuss these issues with the representatives of our strategic partnership.

3)
To organise an online interactive Forum for exchange of experience and good practice that will promote networking and exchange activities not only among the partnership and VET13
organisations in their countries, but also on a European level. With new translation services, it will become possible to break down language barriers between users from different countries, and to foster exchange and assist initiatives that contribute to the European society as a whole.

The target groups for our project are vocational teachers and counsellors. They will participate at the transnational partnership meetings for exchange of experience and/or receive information and best practice how to support vulnerable young people and to prevent them from being drawn into terrorist organisations and movements. The final beneficiaries are young people who are experiencing difficulties, especially NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) who do not see positive social and professional perspectives.

Project Website

http://preventradicalisation.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 34600 Eur

Project Coordinator

Wissenschaftsinitiative Niederösterreich (WIN) & Country: AT

Project Partners

• INI-NOVATION GMBH
• INTEGRA INSTITUT, Institut za razvoj clovekovih potentialov
• QUALED obcianske zdruzenie pre kvalifikáciu a vzdelávanje