Selected Project Highlights

Scoping

In the first phase of the project were actively involved 12 schools.

In the second phase of the project were actively involved 30 schools.

Capacity Building

The capacity building activities in the first phase were designed and conducted by expert trainers (psychologist and cyber security expert). The workshops were attended by more than 140 youth and educators. Some of the youth (more than 20) took leadership and conducted series of workshops and trained more than 115 youth and 15 educators.

The workshops were highly appreciated by the participants, the Project Team and the UNESCO specialist as it was unique, engaging and empowering them for prevention of violent extremism – PVE. The outline describing the design of the workshop (Outline of Ideal PVE Courses) is available upon request (jove.jankulovski(at)yahoo.com).

The materials developed within UNESCO’s programme Media and Information Literacy (MIL) were used as source and reference materials for this project. In addition, some of the extracts from MIL material were used as crucial reference materials for the purpose of setting common ground for terminology and discussions.

The capacity building activities in the second phase were prepared and conducted by youth leaders trained and empowered during the project first phase. These youth leaders, in addition to the trained youth and education in the first phase, trained more than 430 school youth and 35 educators.

Harnessing Social Media

Closed project group was created on Facebook in the first project phase (No! To Online Extremism and Radicalisation) for the needs of the project. It is accessible on: https://www.facebook.com/groups/613272892463978/. It was used for discussion and interaction among participating youth during both project phases.

The number of users in the first phase was 198 while in the second phase was 380. The number of comments on 5 discussion topics during the first phase reached 241 comments. While in second phase, the number of comments on 5 discussion topics reached 406 comments.

Involving Parents of Youth Participants

The sensitivity and complexity of the topic was not an obstacle to outreach more than 530 participants with the dissemination / outreach activities during the first project phase. This number includes more than 200 parents of youth participants.

During the second phase the number of outreached parents exceeds 250. The parents attended capacity building events and / or received A Parent’s Guide on the Prevention of Online Violent Extremism.

Media coverage / web articles / video clips

Article on UNESCO web site: https://en.unesco.org/news/together-young-people-say-no-online-extremism-and-radicalization

MRT, Macedonia National TV, reporting on project workshop,

TV Tera, Macedonian regional TV station, reporting on project workshop

Impressions/Contributions from workshops participants

Useful resources:

Fake news

https://www.webwise.ie/teachers/what-is-fake-news/

Perspective on PVE in the Eyes of Youth – Policy Recommendations

The policy recommendations, conveying the voice of youth in terms of “Policy recommendations that emanate from the project and validated by the joint project team” are the following: Phase 1 and Phase 2.

Impact Assessment

The impact of the phase 1 and the phase 2 was researched. The analysis of the gathered results showed that phase 1 of the project was implemented successfully. Namely, the average mark calculated for each statement in the questionnaire reveals that all statements (questions) got average response in the range of 3.47 (86.75%) to 3.73 (93.25%) on scale from 1 to 4. For more details on the Impact Assessment of Phase 1 you download the analysis on this link.

The analysis of the impact of phase 2 includes comparison of results, received after phase 1 and after phase 2, on each of the statements for each of the target groups (youth, educators, parents). The comparison reveals that on almost all statements the change is positive – phase 2 built up on the change made in phase 1. This is great achievement and rewarding for the Project Team. For more details on the Impact Assessment of Phase 2 you download the analysis on this link.

Youth clearly said during their discussions that they want to continue participating in project like this as this project made a change and can continue making changes.  Furthermore, they see projects like this in their perspectives for forthcoming activities.