Implementing organizations:
- Advocacy Training and Resource Center (ATRC), Lead applicant, Kosovo
- Counseling Line for Women and Girls (CLWG), Partner, Albania
- Association for active and health development of women and children PLEIADES Skopje, Partner, North Macedonia
Summary of the project
The project strengthens the multistakeholder approach to prevent youth violence and build resilience. At the local level, in six municipalities across Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia a group of state and non-state actors are supported to plan, implement, and evaluate initiatives preventing youth violence through the multi-stakeholder approach. Nine youth centers will be operationalized to support youth as an active actor in prevention. At a country level, lessons learned from these multi-stakeholder exercises will be shared with state and non-state actors to promote this approach. At a regional level, challenges and good practices will be shared and regional initiatives will be supported.
Project goals
The overall goal of the project is to strengthen the multi-stakeholder approach to extremist violence prevention (PVE) and building resilience among youth and communities. The project aims to achieve this through four objectives:
- Local state and non-state PVE actors have improved capacities to use a local multistakeholder approach to plan, implement and evaluate initiatives on extremist violence prevention and building resilient youth and communities;
- Youth centers have improved capacities to plan, implement and evaluate initiatives on preventing violence against and among youth, including PVE;
- State and non-state PVE actors have established a regional communication channel and have exchanged good practices and lessons learned at a regional level;
- More information is available on the capacities, implementation and evaluation of work of different state and non-state PVE actors.
Target groups and beneficiaries
The direct beneficiaries of the project are the state and non-state actors part of the multi-stakeholder approach to prevent youth violence and build resilience. This includes local government institutions such as municipality staff, multidisciplinary teams or equivalent mechanisms, frontline workers as well as non-state actors working on this thematic including CSOs and families as well as youth mechanisms, in particular youth centers.
The final beneficiaries are youth and families vulnerable to extremist violence. Extremist violence is here understood to include racially/ethnically motivated violence and violence inspired by political beliefs including right-wing and nationalistic ideas or religious beliefs. Some of these forms also manifest themselves in violence against authorities, gender-based violence, and violence against the LGBTQI community.
Main activities
- Support six multistakeholder groups at the local level in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia to develop a 1-year strategic plan on extremist violent prevention and building resilient youth and communities through workshops.
- Support the above multistakeholder groups to plan, implement and evaluate initiatives on preventing violent extremism and building resilient youth and resilience through workshops and on-the-job support.
- Support nine youth centers to develop a 1-year strategic plan for the functioning of their center and engagement with other local state and non-state actors.
- Support the above youth centers to plan, implement and evaluate initiatives through workshops and on-the-job support.
- Provide thematic workshops on the topic of youth violence prevention and prevention of violent extremism to nine youth centers to increase their knowledge and capacity to support prevention and resilience building.
- Organize regional exchanges between youth mechanisms across Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia to share good practices and organize regional initiatives.
- Organize town hall meetings in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia bringing together state and non-state actors in the PVE field to discuss challenges of the multi-stakeholder approach.
- Organize regional exchanges between state and non-state actors across Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia to exchange good practices.
- Develop country-focused research pieces with six case studies covering Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia on the capacities, planning, implementation and evaluation of extremist violence prevention initiatives and the multi-stakeholder approach.
- Develop a regional comparative research piece to reflect on the findings of the six case studies and provide recommendations at the state and non-state level to improve extremist violence prevention initiatives and the multistakeholder approach.
