ARMOUR

ARMOUR addresses social polarization through strengthening the resilience of individuals, communities and vulnerable groups. It promotes interaction and cooperation between different local actors from public sectors such as local practitioners. The prevention of extremism is envisioned through the development of cooperation models, which are provided as a toolkit for first-line-practitioners.

By developing a dedicated toolkit, the project “ARMOUR: A radical model of resilience of young minds” supports both practitioners and community leaders to shape the opinions of their target groups and peers. The project is funded by the European Commission through the Internal Security Fund – Police funding programme under the call ISFP-2017-AG-RAD on Radicalisation. Coordinated by the Euro-Arab Foundation, a total of nine project partners, including the Center for Security Studies, National Academy for Security, SYNYO, Italian Ministry of Justice, Agenfor International, Libre Foundation, University of Malta and University of Groningen, are addressing a diverse range of potential influencers, which include first line practitioners in state institutions. Furthermore, the project, which has a duration of 30 months, also addresses civil society organisations that are working with young individuals in the EU that are vulnerable to radicalisation. 

The project supports these stakeholders by providing individuals in the community and practitioners know-how as well as a toolkit consisting of an experimental or creative lab architecture. This innovative approach allows them to create, test, and promote psychological and community behavioural and communication strategies, which promote resilience to push and pull factors of radicalization and violent extremism. The model of intervention, which is proposed in the experimental lab, is focused on strengthening critical thinking, individual and community empowerment, emotional resilience and community support. 

The project capitalizes on individuals and organizations which are trained to occupy public discourse and to push back extremist voices in media in order to boost respect and social cohesion. For ensuring the long-term sustainability of the outcomes, the experimental labs approach and the trainings as well as the handbook and material for the practitioners will be provided on the common platform FirstLinePractitioners.com by SYNYO, after the tools have been tested in the field. 

Links

https://armourproject.eu/ 

https://www.firstlinepractitioners.com/armour-project/ 

Keywords

First-line-practitioners, resilience, polarization, radicalisation, extremism, experimental labs