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Prevent Radicalisation - Supports for Professional..
Prevent Radicalisation - Supports for Professionals in Their Work with Refugees and Migrants
Start date: Sep 1, 2016,
End date: Feb 28, 2018
PROJECT
FINISHED
The unexpected dimension of the refugee crisis has hit Europe unprepared, and it challenges, apart from logistical problems, also the large number of professionals and volunteers who work with receiving, helping, teaching and integrating refugees. This huge task requires not only additional budgets for registration, accommodation, food, medical care etc., but also a large work force of “front liners”. Within the public administration, new staff is recruited or transferred to this area from other work. In addition, hundreds of NGO’s and thousands of volunteers are dedicating their time to help and to teach these immigrants European values and, most of all, the language of the host country.The “welcome culture” that existed in autumn 2015 in some EU member states (especially Germany, Austria and Sweden) has faded away and new restrictions make life more difficult not only for arriving refugees, but also for those who have found shelter in the past months and years. After their first relief to have escaped from terror and war, they will start to feel frustrated and pessimistic about their future. Confronted with the rising xenophobia of the “autochthone” population, they might develop a feeling of inferiority which can lead, as the New Years’ events in Cologne showed, to sudden outbreaks of violence, to inclination towards radical ideologies, thus fuelling the spiral of mutual distrust.People working with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants suddenly find themselves between two frontiers: growing xenophobia on one side, and rising frustration and impatience of their clients on the other side. The large part of these front liners has just their good will to help. But sometimes “well meant is the contrary to good”. The Radicalisation Awareness Network of the European Commission states that „...the people best placed to tackle the phenomenon of radicalisation are people in direct contact with targeted individuals or vulnerable groups of population.“Front liners, teachers and trainers need therefore new skills and competences to be better prepared to deal with tensions in and between diverse groups of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. They should know how to detect, at an early stage, indicators of radicalisation among their clients. However, many of them have had their vocational education years ago, and many are completely or partially unprepared to the changes in the way in which our society is organized and which conceptual aspects of radicalisation pose a threat.Therefore, the overall objective is to equip public people working with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants with skills and competences• to deal with (intercultural) tensions between diverse groups of their clients• to detect indicators among their clients/learners who are at at risk of extremism, including the risk of being drawn into terrorism, either directly or through the radicalisation of family dependents• to identify which is the best way to build resilience to radicalisation• to recognise and respond to increased concerns about extremism and discrimination, e.g. racism, islamophobia, anti-Semitism which refugees and many settled migrants face• to reduce racism and xenophobia in the society.In order to reach these objectives, the specific objectives are• to implement an e-platform with all initiatives and learning materials identified and collected in the project, especially how to handle conflicts and intercultural tensions, and materials for the daily practice where frictions appear and clients/learners develop feelings of inferiority or frustration that might render them vulnerable to being drawn into radicalisation• to summarize the findings in a “White Paper Report: Prevent Radicalisation” that will give an overview about the current situation of the specific project environment in the partners’ countries, present the initiatives, projects and materials for conflict solving strategies, which build clients’/learners’resilience to radicalisation by promoting fundamental European values and enabling them to challenge extremist views• to implement also an online interactive forum, in order to facilitate the exchange between educators and youth workers who are confronted with this phenomenon and who will be able to obtain peer support and helpful advice. The project fits into the common underlying strategy of the partners insofar as the development of guidelines and Prevent Radicalisation Resource Pack is in line with their research or educational activities and their operative programmes. The transnational cooperation of partners, the majority of them from countries that have been greatly involved in the recent refugees’ track, will enrich the quality of the results and will render them immediately applicable for support their clients before their vulnerabilities are exploited by those that would want them to embrace terrorism.