The recent terror actions are tragic evidence of the continuous need for new strategies, approaches and methods to prevent and respond to radicalisation and violent/militant extremism. The “Communities Counteracting Radicalisation” (CoCoRa) project aims to develop a new, bottom-up and inclusive approach to prevent violent extremism. The five CoCoRa partners met on 10th and 11th December in Helsingør, Denmark, to launch the project, which is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission. Partner organisations come from Denmark, Germany, Austria, France and Italy.
The CoCoRa project departs from the observation that in previous efforts there seemed to be skepticism about the involvement of local communities and civil society resources in the activities, especially those with a Muslim background. This reluctance may, however, increase the distance between youngsters with Muslim background from the surrounding society, which may lead in some cases to the development of sympathies for fundamentalist and/or violent extremist thoughts. On this background, the CoCoRa project aims to develop and test a new prevention strategy that involves local communities and citizens with a Muslim background directly and actively in the prevention of radicalisation and violent extremism.
The CoCoRa partners will start with the Collaborative Programme, which foresees the establishment of a close cooperation with local communities of citizens with a Muslim background. Jointly with local communities, each partner will then prepare and plan a Prevention Programme for young people from the collaborating communities. This will be a long-term course of various activities focused on topics like equal and active citizenship in practice, antidiscrimination, democracy and citizen’s rights etc. Young people from the prevention programme will be further trained in becoming spokesmen (“Ambassadors”) for young people with Muslim background towards local authorities and professionals in the general prevention effort. Finally, the CoCoRa Prevention Strategy will be developed, a total prevention package, composed by available, usable and transferable methods and tools from the community-based strategy.
CESIE will lead the development of the Ambassador Programme, implement the project in Italy, and guide and coordinate all dissemination activities.
Project partners are:
- mhtconsult, Denmark, coordinator of the project
- ADICE, France
- Cultures Interactive, Germany
- Verein Multikulturell, Austria
- CESIE, Italy
For further information on the project, please contact migration@cesie.org.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
