Psycho social support and preventing extremism through youth engagement

• In Event: Syria: Implementing the Idarah Program

Proposal

The ongoing conflict creates conditions upon which all vulnerability and resilience factors act. Addressing these factors without addressing the ongoing conflict is unlikely to succeed in addressing the needs of the population or in preventing violent extremism.

This presentation will focus on the four main drivers that drive vulnerability and the activities Idarah is implementing to counter these drivers and lessons’ learned. For example, the third driver is the deprivation of personal psychological needs for efficacy, autonomy, and purpose. The Idarah program through psychosocial programming made it’s objective to make classrooms more conducive to learning. The psychosocial programming aims to address the immediate impacts of trauma on students and teachers that hinder the ability of students to absorb information and of teachers to effectively manage their classrooms and support their students.

The presentation will also focus on Idarah’s education platform that also serves as a foundation through which to further support The Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF), in its Memorandum on Good Practices for Education and Countering Violent Extremism. Education is a key tool to build resilience against violent extremism. We will discuss the multi-sectoral approach the program has taken in supporting education and addressing the additional drivers of vulnerability.

Author

• Todd Diamond, Chemonics International