Violent radicalisation among young people has become a growing issue of concern in Europe and beyond. The rise in incidents of hate speech and hate crime, attacks on migrants and refugees, propaganda and violent xenophobia, as well as the rise in religious and political extremism and terrorist attacks have highlighted the urgent need of working with young people and preventing their violent radicalisation at an early stage. National and European political stakeholders called upon the youth sector, in cooperation with the education sector and other relevant sectors and actors, to take action in addressing violent radicalisation in an integrated and cross-sectoral approach. The project PRIDE aims to promote international youth exchanges as a successful educational approach to prevent the violent radicalisation of young people with the aim to develop a wider scope of mobility projects for young people with fewer opportunities and thus increasing their active citizenship / democratic resilience. The project reaches out for the following objectives: A) promoting democratic values and active citizenship of ALL young people to prevent violent radicalisation through intercultural dialogue and international youth exchanges B) supporting capacity building of youth workers, teachers and trainers with regard to prevention of violent radicalisation C) enhancing the quality of international youth exchanges through developing and testing an innovative integrated approach (blended learning) During this Strategic Partnership project, a Franco-German-Tunisian cross-sectoral partner consortium of experienced organisations from the fields of international youth work and prevention of violent radicalisation will exchange best practices and pool resources, experience and skills in the domain of mobility programmes for young people with fewer opportunities. At first, the consortium will conduct national pre-studies assessing national evidence based research and analysing national practices/information how to best approach the issue of violent radicalisation. European studies, results of pilot projects and policy papers will feed into the exchange of experiences. Based on the analysis the consortium will design a blended training curriculum for youth workers, teachers and trainers equipping them with the relevant knowledge and competences to address violent radicalisation during the preparation, implementation and evaluation of international youth exchanges. Two short-term staff trainings as well as a complementary online learning tool will be developed and tested by 18 youth workers, teachers and trainers throughout the project and result into an educational training guide. In addition, an interactive learning tool (an application for smartphones) which enables young people with fewer opportunities to get actively involved before, during and after international youth exchanges will be developed and tested by 90 young people in the framework of trilateral youth exchanges. As a result, the participating young people will have an increased knowledge and awareness with regard to the topic of violent radicalisation and its prevention, their transversial skills (e.g. social and civic competences, digital competence) will be increased and thus their democratic resilience will be strengthened. The staff of the consortium will have undergone an intercultural learning process of reflection beyond European framings and increased its knowledge of educational approaches (e.g. concepts of human rights and civic education) and educational tools in the field of prevention of violent radicalisation. Both digital tools will increase the active participation of all stakeholders involved in international youth work and thereby improve the quality of international youth exchanges. The project results and outputs will be disseminated in a multi-track approach at local, national and European level as well as in two multiplier events in Tunisia and France.
Radicalisation among young people has become a growing issue of concern in Europe and beyond. The rise in incidents of hate speech and hate crime, attacks on migrants and refugees, propaganda and violent xenophobia, as well as the rise in religious and political extremism and terrorist attacks have highlighted the urgent need of working with young people and preventing their radicalisation at an early stage. National and European political stakeholders (e.g. Paris Declaration of 17th March 2015) called upon the youth sector, in cooperation with the education sector and other relevant sectors and actors, to take action in addressing violent radicalisation in an integrated and cross-sectoral approach. The PRIDE project was born within a network of organisations engaged in international youth work and aimed at promoting international youth exchanges as a successful educational approach to prevent the radicalisation of young people. PRIDE also aimed at developing a wider scope of mobility projects for young people with fewer opportunities and thus increasing their active citizenship / democratic resilience. The project reached out for the following objectives: A) promoting democratic values and active citizenship of ALL young people to prevent radicalisation through intercultural dialogue and international youth exchanges B) supporting capacity building of youth workers, teachers, and trainers regarding the prevention of radicalisation C) enhancing the quality of international youth exchanges through developing and testing an innovative integrated approach (blended learning) During this Strategic Partnership project, a Franco-German-Tunisian cross-sectoral partner consortium of experienced organisations from the fields of international youth work and prevention of radicalisation has exchanged best practices and pooled resources, experiences and skills in the domain of mobility programmes for young people with fewer opportunities. At first, the consortium conducted national pre-studies assessing national evidence-based research and analysing national practices on how to best approach the issue of radicalisation. European studies, results of pilot projects and policy papers fed into the exchange of experiences. Based on this trinational analysis, the consortium designed a blended training curriculum for youth workers, teachers and trainers and equipped them with the relevant knowledge and competences to address radicalisation during the preparation, implementation and evaluation of international youth exchanges. Two short-term staff trainings as well as a complementary online learning module were developed and implemented with 19 youth workers, teachers and trainers. The results of the trinational analysis and the training have been compiled into the educational training guide "civic education and prevention of radicalisation in international youth work" (output 1). The educational guide as well as the trinational analysis were published in French, German and Arabic language and are available as .pdf documents on the project's website and the Erasmus+ project results plattform. In addition, an interactive learning tool (a Web application) which enables young people with fewer opportunities to get actively involved before, during and after international youth exchanges has been developed and tested in the framework of four international youth exchanges with 121 young people from Tunisia, France and Germany. The Web application "MobiYouth.org" (output 3) including explanatory videos as well as the online module of the blended learning training acitivity (output 2) are on the project's website www.erasmus-pride.org and the Erasmus+ project results plattform. All intellectual outputs developed during the project were disseminated through the multiplier events including the participation of all partner organisations. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the multiplier events were organised as online conferences. An added value of the online event was that institutional guests from all three countries could be interviewed and broadcast during the events as well as all three experts for the prevention of radicalisation CAREP, ALIFS and ufuq.de. All videos were published online on the project website and are available for all interested persons. The sustainability of the dissemination of the project has been even stronger than it could have been in the framework of a face-to-face conference. At the end, the staff of the consortium has undergone an in-depth learning process of developing blended learning formats within international youth work long before the COVID-19 pandemic and is currently able to organise digital and hybrid formats of international youth work.