Building Resilient communities: youth work preventing violent radicalization and extremism

Context

There are more than 1.2 billion young people (ages 15-24) in the world today with about 89 million youth (ages 15-29) in the countries of the European Union. Young people are impacted by constant changes in global social and economic realities, and many of them face poverty, exclusion, inequality and marginalisation. Their personal circumstances and wider political, social and economic environment in which they live may make them vulnerable to various polarized influences and also violent extremism. Realities of this emerging trend make it necessary to emphasise the need to work with young people in Europe and its neighbouring regions, in order to strengthen their resilience to violent extremism, and reinforce the openness and inclusiveness of communities in which they live.  In order to determine and illustrate the role of youth work in this regard, Italian National Agency of Erasmus+: Youth in Action and the European Solidarity Corps Programmes, together with  EuroMed, EECA, SEE and Inclusion & Diversity SALTO Resource Centres, are jointly implementing a long-term project aiming at reflecting and exploring how we can strengthen the role of different actors, especially youth workers, in a long-term strategy about youth work against violent extremism and different phenomena of polarization.

General objective:

The main aim of this international seminar is to create a space to reflect, identify and analyse the role(s) of youth work in building resilient communities in order to mitigate the increasing polarization in our societies and to prevent violent radicalization processes among young people.

Specific objectives:

sharing practices about the role of youth work in building resilient communities;

supporting participation of youth in building resilient communities as agents of change;

fostering partnership among different sectors of youth work dealing with building community resilience;

supporting the development of a community of practices within this specific thematic;

contributing to the development of an inclusive society based on common democratic values.

Target Group: 25 Participants with the following profile: 

youth workers and/or practitioners having experiences to share about building resilience, communities resilience, preventing violent radicalisation and extremism (practices and experiences);

youth workers and/or practitioners working with young people wishing to explore the concept of building resilience.