New Countering Violent Extremism Curriculum Raises Awareness and Encourages Collaborative Efforts
Search for Common Ground (Search) in collaboration with Hedayah, the International Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), with financial support of the European Union’s Strengthening Resilience to Violent Extremism (STRIVE) Global program, released the first-ever complete CVE Training Curriculum to raise awareness on collaborative CVE approaches among governments and civil societies, while better equipping them to prevent and counter violent extremism.
H.E. Patrizio Fondi, Ambassador of the European Union to the UAE, said that
"The EU is proud of having contributed to such an important and unique initiative, together with our partners from Hedayah and Search. By now, we are all aware that securitized responses to violent extremism need to be complemented with whole of society approaches. I am convinced that this initiative will be an instrumental game changer both in terms of formulation and implementation of CVE initiatives in the future.”
The Curriculum was designed with thorough consideration of local contexts, particularly in Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa region. The context-specific training program is available in English, Russian, and Arabic and highlights the benefits of a collaborative, whole-of-society approach—beyond the use of military or securitized responses.
“With the launch of this comprehensive training program, governments and civil societies can now easily access and integrate the knowledge, tools, and practices necessary to reduce the risk of radicalization within their communities,” Hedayah Executive Director H.E. Maqsoud Kruse highlights.
The Curriculum encourages the early identification and mitigation of risks with CVE programming and offers guidance on how to design, implement, and monitor constructive responses to violent extremism.
“We’ve learned that in order to prevent and counter violent extremism, it takes collaboration. That’s what this curriculum aims to do – make it easier for different groups of people across society to collaborate in understanding and then transforming violent extremism,” Search’s Senior Vice President of Programs Lena Slachmuijlder shares.
Through an engaging facilitated learning approach, the Curriculum forms more than a traditional training program. The training program enables participants to develop new understandings or critically approach complex issues (like violent extremism) that do not always have a “right” answer. With carefully structured exercises, discussions, and opportunities across ten learning modules, the Curriculum equips trainees with the good practices, tools, and methods to make informed and effective choices in their efforts to counter violent extremism.
“With video prompts, practical group work, and links to further resources, this training package can be used by government, civil society, security forces, religious groups and anyone who is interested in playing their part. Each and every one of us has a role to play, and this curriculum helps us to turn that commitment into practice,” Slachmuijlder adds.
The complete CVE Training Curriculum package is accessible to the public on Search’s website (https://www.sfcg.org/countering-violent-extremism/), Hedayah’s website here, (https://bit.ly/2G2d8k4) and on the Counter Extremism Hub (www.counterextremismhub.org).