CHAMPIONs

The central activity of the CHAMPIONs project was the permanent establishment of local working groups - the “CHAMPIONs Roundtables”. These roundtables brought together professionals from different disciplines, professions and institutions to work together to counter polarization, build resilience and protect vulnerable groups. In addition, educational professionals were supported with training and professional development in dealing with polarization and combating all forms of group-focused enmity. The focus here was on the needs of the professionals, strengthening exchange and cooperation and breaking down institutional barriers.

As part of CHAMPIONs, Cultures Interactive offered a training series for youth work practitioners on group-focused enmity and the prevention of radicalization. The focus of the training was on networking and exchange between the participants. The aim of the training series was to promote self-reflective and self-empowering processes and to encourage a change of perspective.

Counteracting polarization and promoting resilience

To facilitate the processes of developing joint solutions on the ground, an online platform was created to link three key tools:

• “Alert” - a compilation of services developed under other EU-funded projects that allow professionals to draw attention to specific priority issues (e.g. social media)
• “Arena” - a communication and cooperation mechanism that enables the immediate exchange of information either privately, between professionals or publicly through the sharing of best-practice models
• “Training Yard” - a capacity building resource center where professionals can participate either individually or as a group, with learning materials, video tutorials, handouts and case study simulation exercises developed as part of the project action.

The long-term goal of the project was to transfer this pilot model to other municipalities in the EU, where more roundtables for professionals will be established and they will also become users of the developed online platform. In order to achieve this, synergies with related EU-funded projects, platforms and networks were used throughout the duration of the project.