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An international team of academics and practitioners led by The Open University and including cultures interactive e.V. has won € 3.16 m funding, to help people handle the increasing emergence of so-called ‘extremist views’ at home and abroad in the run up to major political events, nationally and EU wide. Psychologists at the Open University, good practice researchers at Cultures Interactive e.V. and the other consortium member are working on developing tools for the project that has been funded by the European Commission’s ‘Horizon Europe’ programme involving 17 partners across Europe and beyond its borders.

„I want to write a book to prevent other young people from going to Syria and joining the so-called Islamic State!“ These were the words of a young man in prison who was mentored by a social worker from the Jamal al-Khatib project team. Once part of the jihadi scene in Austria, he wanted to prevent other young people from repeating the mistakes he had made. This initiative gave rise to the web video project ‚Jamal al-Khatib – Mein Weg!‘ in 2017.

If you want to work effectively with young people on democratic attitudes, you have to pick them up in their lifeworld. Youth cultures are particularly suitable as door-openers for achieving effects with adolescents from different milieus through a political education oriented to their lifeworld. Youth cultural activities can create informal learning spaces that promote emancipatory and critical awareness as well as the examination of social issues. At the same time, youth culture work can teach young people how their personal interests are linked to their broader social environment. In addition, youth cultural offers make human rights-oriented and democratic values such as justice, diversity and solidarity tangible, which can make young people resistant to ideologies of inequality.

After a three-year break due to the pandemic, we are finally back this year: From June 5 to 9, we invite you to the old Nudelfabrik Zeitz in Saxony-Anhalt for Summer School! Summer School - that means five days of educational festival with professional exchange, further education, networking and change of perspective.

 

The so-called political neutrality requirement regularly leads to uncertainty in school and non-school education: What does this requirement mean for dealing with discriminatory and misanthropic statements? On what legal basis can schools even conduct a project day against right-wing extremism? And how can political education work deal with parties that contradict its own objectives? Can they simply be disinvited from events?

What are the basics and methodological guidelines of distancing work? Which approaches have proven successful in pedagogical practice? And where are there still needs for further development of pedagogical interventions? The specialist unit for the prevention of right-wing extremism at cultures interactive has just published four brochures (in german) on this topic. Various authors present the basics and methodological guidelines of distancing work, explain what is important in program design, describe approaches and examples from practice, and show where there is still a need for further development.

Social workers and adult educators are regularly confronted with conspiracy narratives in their work. In order to support them in dealing with these narratives, the veritas counseling center is again offering a certification course for educational professionals starting in September. In seven consecutive modules, participants will learn about the history of conspiracy narratives, their psychological impact, and links to right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism as well as disinformation.

cultures interactive e.V. is on the road with a new project in Berlin-Neukölln: PONS! offers flexible and youth-oriented counseling for children and young people who are affected by discrimination, exclusion, bullying or violence. The mobile counseling service aims to empower young people who are affected by attribution and affiliation conflicts.

The BRaVE Fair aims to bring together European prevention projects working for diversity and democracy in the fields of arts and sports. This event offers projects the opportunity to share their experiences, present and discuss their work. The Fair wants to support projects, build new networks and give them the opportunity to go into direct exchange and find inspiration for their own work based on best-practice projects. For European projects working in the field of youth prevention and deradicalization, accommodation and travel costs can be covered by BRaVE.

From 8 April to 6 May we'll explore current topics of project work on prevention and resilience taking place in Europe across five modules on Thursdays for five weeks in a row.
In each module, international experts, researchers and practitioners share their knowledge with participants and encourage them to exchange ideas. Participants then have the opportunity to deepen their discussions and build new networks across Europe.

Many projects in Europe engage in building resilience in their communities and work against extremist tendencies and polarisation in our society. Within the framework of BRaVE, we want to support projects to exchange and network across Europe, to learn from each other and to support their work with expertise.

From 26th to 29th of April 2021, the ‚European Conference on Preventing Polarisation & Violent Radicalisation: How to Strengthen Resilience‘ will take place online. In workshops, lectures and panel discussions we aim for a european-wide exchange on current phenomena of radicalization and polarization as well as to shed light on various possibilities to strengthen resilience in our communities.

Exit helpers do important and indispensable work. They need the support of all of us, as well as infrastructure and stability of working conditions. Furthermore is an unambiguous support for effective and humane crime prevention and exit work needed, as well as for youth and educational work that creates resilience both inside and outside schools.
But any hasty interconnection of social work and security agencies would be detrimental to exit work, as Harald Weilnboeck argues in this position statement.

Which project should receive the people's choice award? Until 15th of november you can vote for your three favourite projects.

The CEE Prevent Net project has compiled a compendium of good practices for preventing discrimination, group hatred and right-wing extremism. Some of these methods have already been proven and tested in partner countries as part of the project’s international transfer.