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YW - YE - A Bridge For Peace & Democracy
Start date: Feb 1, 2016, End date: Jan 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

A Bridge For Peace & Democracy is a project that transcends cultural, religious and ideological differences, aims at building Bridges to promote dialogue in Preventing Violent Extremism and Radicalization by reflecting on the links between peace, democracy, gender, CVE and human rights: “these are the basic layers for a peaceful, inclusive and diverse society characterized by genuine opportunities for all”. The project will provide a neutral arena for participants to explore the root causes of extremism and radicalization leading to violence, and possible measures and actions to address their challenges: “from a Young Peace-builder’s perspective”. During thematic sessions; participants will look at how different tools: media, education, women empowerment, and inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue effectively contribute to turn vulnerable young people away from radicalization.The objective is to share data, increase quality information and diversity of opportunities to find innovative solutions to meet challenges of violent extremism. Single indicators in CVE are not enough to measure the targets. There is a need to gather information about youth perceptions at levels. Only then, we will be able to state if progress in CVE has been made or not. Asking them what matters most and their opinions, shall help stimulate debates as the threat posed by violent extremism is not limited to any single ideology. Groups and individuals inspired by a range of personal, religious, political or other ideological beliefs; promote and use violence to further their goals, thus; the sophisticated use of Internet adds an additional layer of complexity.Hence, the project shall explore thematic sessions such as: CVE: A Peace-building Perspective, CVE: A Gender Perspective, CVE: A Preventive Perspective and CNVE: Counter Narratives (Internet based) of Violent Extremism. Based on their content and lacking data globally, there is a need for capacity building of practitioners and the youth to be able to meet new expectations and solutions. The project shall be implemented in 3 phases: Phase 1- Mobility of (16) youth workers (a seminar for learning module); Phase 2 - A (48) youth exchange with training material; and Phase 3 - A (40) youth exchange (Open-Ended Consultation: a series of facilitated discussions to capture and gather young people’s realities and views).During the activity, each day shall start with a persuasive presentation on the Thematic; followed by 2 various form of Workshop; a Session and concluded by a self-evaluation. The overall purpose it to gather youth realities and views on:1. Mobilization, outreach and organizingHow to reach out, connect and engage youth against violent extremism?2. Capacity buildingHow to ensure that we learn from each other and from our engagement in CVE? 3. Youth policy and advocacyCollect youth inputs on CVE policy formulation and compress them into the CVE Agenda.The relevance and background of the project highlight how young people are highly engaged in CVE; Yet, their efforts remain largely unrecognized and undermined due to lack of inclusive participatory opportunities; instead, they are taken as violent actors. This leads to key factors leading to their recruitment: “isolation, marginalization, hopeless, discrimination, racism, hate speech, inequality, lack of dialogue space and opportunities”. For young women, it represent a step backwards in terms of their capacity to shape their own future while facing a life of indentured servitude. Thus, making them easy to be persuaded by extremists showing interests in them. Asking youth questions about their concerns for the future, shall yield information to address the root causes that lead to their vulnerability in the first place. Further, the project seeks to: 1. Enhance practitioners’ knowledge on CVE and its challenges, access on quality information by data disaggregation and create managing tools for PHASE II & III;2. Enhance youth knowledge on CVE and its challenges; and voice their opinions, perspective, needs and interests; 3. Inspire young people's commitments to contribute effective and innovative actions to enhance CVE response;4. Facilitate opportunities for young people to contribute to the global, regional, national and local voice of youth in the struggle against violent extremism;5. Build the tools for participants to continue communicating their priorities and commitments in countering violent extremism and radicalization in the long term. The project outcomes builds on and complement the activities set out in the “Immediate action by the Council of Europe to combat violent extremism”, followed by “the Oslo conference on youth against violent extremism”; committing to engage youth in CVE, leading to two main objectives:A. Reinforce the civil society framework against violent extremism;B. Prevent and fight violent extremism through concrete measures.

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