Countering Violent Extremism Workshop for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs

On 9 January 2017, Hedayah was invited to conduct an internal workshop for over 15 representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Netherlands in The Hague, The Netherlands. The workshop included Dutch diplomats based in several regions of the world.

Mr. Ivo Veenkamp, Deputy Executive Director of Hedayah, provided an overview of Hedayah’s activities to date, including a brief on Hedayah’s International CVE Research Conference 2016 recently held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Ms. Saira Saeed, Program Manager at Hedayah, presented Hedayah’s work on the Returning Foreign Fighters (RFTF) Program and highlighted its key findings and lessons learned.

As part of this discussion, Ms. Jessika Soors, Head of Violent Extremism and De-radicalization in the city of Vilvoorde, Belgium, offered a case study on the re-integration and de-radicalization efforts of RFTFs. She also highlighted the work of social workers in an innovative community-led response to counter extremism.

For the remainder of the workshop, Hedayah representatives provided region specific overviews of the trends and concerns on radicalization and violent extremism during individual sessions.