Accordingly, Hedayah prioritizes community engagement with multiple actors among its key expertise. Existing CVE efforts have begun to integrate perspectives of various local actors, including youth, gender, families, police officers and religious leaders. Under community engagement, this also includes building the capacities of NGOs, civil society, semi-government organizations and international organizations to implement CVE activities effectively.

We focus on taking these initiatives further by ensuring that local actors and practitioners are well equipped with the tools and knowledge through various training and funding opportunities. Hedayah works to develop specific and tailored capacity building curricula to guide a wide range of practitioners, including social workers and law enforcement agencies, in supporting families through the CVE-cycle.

For example, in priority countries, we engage with police academies to embed culturally-literate CVE approaches into their training curricula. This program offers a considered process of curriculum development, aided by a train the trainers approach. Importantly, this offers a sustainable alternative to ‘one off’ international trainings for on the ground police officers.