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Region: Middle East and North Africa

A data-driven approach to preventing violent extremism in Tunisia

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Posted October 18, 2018 .
By Evelyn Rupert .
6 min read.

What makes youth susceptible to recruitment by violent extremist organizations? And how can their risk be measured?

In Tunisia, the ETTYSAL program, whose name means “reaching out” in Arabic, sought to answer these questions and work with youth and their families to build resilience to violent groups. The 18-month pilot program was funded by the U.S. Department of State and implemented by Creative Associates International.

ETTYSAL adapted a diagnostic tool to measure youth risk for joining gangs, called the Youth Services Eligibility Tool, and applied it to a context of violent extremism. With this data, the program could identify youth who were in danger of engaging with a violent extremist organization and work to lessen those risk factors and strengthen protective factors, especially within the family.

“The YSET was originally developed in by the University of Southern California and used by the Los Angeles Gang Reduction and Youth Development office as part of their gang prevention strategy. It was then adapted by Creative in Latin America and the Caribbean,” says Creative’s Citizen Security Practice Area Director Enrique Roig. “In working with credible local partners, Creative was able to take a diagnostic tool used to predict gang joining and adapt it to a context for working with youth in preventing violent extremism.”

A crucial partner in this effort was Dr. Slim Masmoudi, Assistant Professor in Cognitive Psychology and Director of the Career Center at the University of Tunis. Masmoudi and his team were a key part of adapting, administering and analyzing the diagnostic tool and working with family counselors to best serve the participating youth and reduce their risk factors.

In this Q&A, Masmoudi shares some insights into this data-driven model and how it was tailored and applied in vulnerable communities in Tunisia.

How did your work with ETTYSAL begin and what did your role entail?

Masmoudi: My work with ETTYSAL really began with two big connections. First, when I organized a workshop gathering together students, colleagues, Creative staff, the ETTYSAL team and representatives from the University of Southern California. Then, we engaged Tunisian NGOs and activists that work with youth. These two significant connections built the first bridge between research and field, between researchers and counselors and activists, and between the university and the communities.

Once my work with the program began in earnest, I was the scientific and academic supervisor and coordinator consultant throughout implementation. We adapted the Youth Services Eligibility Tool (YSET), a diagnostic originally applied to youth at risk of engaging with gangs, into what we called the Arabic YSET, or AYSET, adding some risk factors and validating the tool. We then helped administer the tool to 600 youth – 100 were ultimately selected to participate in the program – and conducted thorough statistical analysis. We also facilitated trainings and workshops for the family counselors and supervised the use of the family-centered intervention approach. This work was all done in coordination with ETTYSAL Chief of Party Halima Mrad, her team and Creative in D.C.

How did the AYSET measure youth risk?

Masmoudi: The AYSET comprises 12 risk factors which are: antisocial tendencies, weak parental supervision, critical life events, impulsive risk taking, neutralization of guilt, peer influence, deviant behaviors, peer radicalization, family radicalization, religious extremism – both concerning and worrying behaviors – and social vulnerability.

These risk factors are formulated as scales, measuring in some cases the frequency of the behaviors and in others the degree of agreement about certain behaviors. This frequency or degree was reflected in the scoring system we used.

We developed a cut point, or threshold, to determine who could be considered high-risk and was consequently eligible for the family-centered intervention based on their scoring.

This AYSET administration was a standardized process conducted by family counselors, who were all psychologists or sociologists.

How did ETTYSAL adapt this tool from the YSET already in use in Latin America and the Caribbean?

Masmoudi: Our adaptation process was multidimensional, progressive, interactive and took into account the expertise of a wide range of people. First, we designed and administered an online survey by the University of Tunis with more than 200 youth to validate the previously existing nine risk factors to make sure they still applied in the CVE and Tunisian context.

We conducted a series of six focus groups with 64 youth, partnering with local NGOs. We then did a theoretical background review and analyzed the tools and factors related to radicalization and analyzed the results of our survey and focus groups.

Based on those results, we adapted the YSET questions, adding three additional risk factors to the original nine. Those three focused on religious extremism – for which we added two factors – and social vulnerability to reflect the local context.

I’d like to highlight the fact that through our program, religious extremism was proven not to be the factor that determines whether a youth will join a violent group. Rather, the other behaviors and risk factors in the AYSET can lead to religious extremism.

Why do you think ETTYSAL’s family counseling model is an effective response to these risk factors?

Masmoudi: The family counseling model was effective because it was systemic, working on all the components and processes in the family system. The model’s success stems from restoring healthy relationships between a young person and his family members by: building the feeling of connection to the family; strengthening family links; improving a feeling of acceptance by others; and reestablishing individual resilience.

The family intervention model showed a positive impact on the youth and their families, and the counselors were highly committed to their work. ETTYSAL also built the local capacity for youth services and strengthened networks of service providers so they can continue to provide resources for youth.

Long term, I think expanding this systemic approach would be very beneficial and we should continue to build resilience at the individual, family and community levels. I’d like to focus in even more on the role of women in preventing violent extremism – particularly mothers, but also aunts, sisters, etc.

At the end of the program, what did the data show?

Masmoudi: Data showed that religious extremism is not the cause of youth engaging with violent extremist organizations but is the result of other explaining and implicit factors such as social vulnerability, antisocial tendencies, impulsive risk taking and so on. The unmet expectations of the Tunisian revolution in 2011, discrimination and feelings of injustice feed the individual risk factors among vulnerable youth in marginalized communities of Tunisia. Then peer and family radicalization, influence and critical life events serve as a catalyst.

Our data also showed that the family-centered intervention, which was validated with gangs, is a powerful approach to prevent youth from joining extremist groups. This approach aims to reconnect the young person to his family horizontally (with siblings, parents, aunts and uncles) and vertically (with older generations like great-grandparents).

Results showed that thanks to this approach, 95 percent of youth reduced their risk factors to below our threshold for risk, meaning only 5 percent of youth remain eligible for family counseling.

In addition, the average percent change across all risk factors between the first and last AYSETs was 30 percent. The risk factor that saw the biggest drop was family radicalization, with an 84 percent decline. That was followed by impulsive risk taking, which dropped by 46 percent.

These results showed a significant change in decreasing the risk factors related to the youth, their families and their peers, despite the challenging conditions related to the local community. They also showed the success of the program in decreasing the risk factors and in creating a real and significant change in the lives of the youth who were eligible and qualified for the program.

A right to learn: Morocco program ensures all students have access to quality education

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Posted October 1, 2018 .
By Mounya El Asri .
4 min read.

While 11-year-old Ayoub is now reading and playing games with his classmates, this seemed out of reach just a few years ago. Ayoub has a condition called dyspraxia, a neurological disorder that makes it difficult to plan and process motor tasks.

Around the world, children with disabilities are often denied the right to quality, inclusive and equitable education. Of the 150 million children with disabilities globally, an estimated 90 percent are out of school, according to the World Health Organization and UNICEF..

In Morocco, according to the 2014 National Survey on Disability, 66.1 percent of children and adolescents with disabilities are out of school because the education system lacks the resources to accommodate their needs. Out of the 1.4 million Moroccans with disabilities, only 19.6 percent complete primary education, 9.5 percent complete secondary education, and 1.8 percent reach a higher education level.

But Ayoub and his family were determined that his story would be different.

“We really suffered a lot from Ayoub’s condition, but we kept believing in him and we won’t give up. We all dream of a bright future for our boy,” says Ayoub’s grandfather.

And with support from the USAID Reading for Success-National Program for Reading, that dream is becoming a reality.

An uphill climb to education

Ayoub lives with his mother Fatima and his grandparents in the small town of Sbaa Ayoun between Fez and Meknes. His father left soon after Ayoub was born when the family learned of his disability.

When he was 7 years old, he enrolled in school, but could never make it to the next grade because of his condition. Determined for her son to get a quality education, his mother managed to enroll him in a private primary school, but Ayoub came home every day in tears after being bullied by classmates and ignored by his teacher.

Still committed to Ayoub’s future in spite of the obstacles, his family tried a special needs class. Ayoub still did not learn to read and struggled to get along with his teachers.

Finally, a school principal recognized a spark in the boy and knew he could learn and excel in the right environment. He recommended that Ayoub enroll in a National Program for Reading intervention class where his education could take off.

Open doors for learning and literacy

When then 10-year-old Ayoub started first grade at Al Mokhtar Soussi school, nearly 10 miles away from home, the adjustment wasn’t easy.

With no transportation, Ayoub must get to school on foot, which is a challenge given his condition. His grandmother walks with him, regardless of the weather, sometimes carrying him on her back to go faster and ensure he doesn’t fall and hurt himself on the road.

At his new school, Ayoub was quickly embraced by his teacher Hanane.

“He came to my classroom, and I could immediately see that he was scared, lost and hopeless”, said Hanane. “I decided to take on the challenge and committed myself to bringing the smile back to his young face.”

As Hanane tried to find the catalyst to ignite Ayoub’s interest in learning, she noticed her new student lit up during Storytime, a new pedagogical approach used under Morocco’s new Arabic reading curriculum. Hanane was trained in this new approach under the USAID-funded Reading for Success-National Program for Reading.

Implemented by Creative Associates International, the five-year program supports the Government of Morocco in developing a national literacy program to improve Arabic literacy skills in grades 1 through 4. It seeks to improve classroom instruction; expand remedial and extracurricular reading opportunities at school, at home and in the community; and to improve national learning and assessment systems for reading and writing.

Within two weeks of joining Hanane’s class and participating in the interactive reading program, Ayoub opened up, gained confidence, and finally started reading words.

By the sixth month, Ayoub was reading sentences and even participating in school activities such as theater, games, and reading activities.

“Now I can read, count from 1 to 20, and I have friends,” says Ayoub.

Ayoub finished the school year with very good grades in reading and a renewed sense of confidence. He spent the summer vacation practicing reading the grade 2 textbook Hanane gave him to help him get ready for the next school year.

Hanane has become not only a teacher, but also Ayoub’s mentor.

“Ayoub came to me one day and said: ‘Good morning teacher!’ with a wide smile and a big hug,” says Hanane. “When we asked him what he wanted to become in the future, he happily said: “A teacher, just like my teacher Hanane!”

Focusing on the family to prevent violent extremism

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Posted August 27, 2018 .
By Evelyn Rupert .
8 min read.

The push and pull factors that drive youth to join a violent group can be seen playing out across continents, religions and cultures, whether that group is a gang in Central America or a violent extremist organization in North Africa.

An 18-month pilot program called ETTYSAL, which means “reaching out” in Arabic, sought to adapt a methodology for reducing youth risk factors of engaging with gangs to the context of Tunisia and build resilience to violent extremist groups. The project was funded by the U.S. Department of State and implemented by Creative Associates International.

Enrique Roig, Director of Creative’s Citizen Security Practice Area, said the intention of ETTYSAL was to field test an approach on strengthening family protective factors to reduce likelihood of young people getting involved with groups prone to violence. ETTYSAL worked with 100 youth and their families in two communities to change behaviors that indicate high risk. Youth were evaluated for vulnerability to extremist organizations based on a series of risk factors, and their risk factors were then measured again after six months and at the end of the program.

“We wanted to determine if ideology and religion were as determinant in influencing youth involvement in extremist groups, and the evidence bore out that they are not,” Roig said. “Other individual factors like critical life events, drug use, negative peer influence and lack of family involvement are more critical to a youth’s susceptibility to recruitment.”

Halima Mrad with experts and partners from the universities of Tunis and Ez-Zitouna.
From left: Dr. Slim Masmoudi of the University of Tunis; Dr. Mongia Souahi of the University of Ez-Zitouna; ETTYSAL Chief of Party Halima Mrad; and Dr. Mohamed Jouili of the University of Tunis.

This data-driven model, at work in Los Angeles and Central America, is centered on individualized family counseling and strengthening the entire family system.

It follows an overarching public health, place-based approach to violence prevention, in which violence is treated like a disease. Creative’s programs around the world seek to treat those “infected” and keep violence from spreading further through holistic interventions.

Halima Mrad, ETTYSAL Chief of Party, says the program’s results show that an approach designed with gangs in mind is equally effective in reducing youth risk for joining violent extremist organizations.

The context is different, she says, but many behaviors and risk factors are the same.

In this Q&A, Mrad explains how the program worked and shares some of its successes.

What are some of the challenges that Tunisian youth face that can make them vulnerable to violet extremism?

Mrad: The context in which these youth live has a lot to do with the risk factors and the challenges they face. In Kasserine, one of the ETTYSAL communities, there are neighborhoods that are adjacent to the mountain of Chaambi, where there is actually a base of violent extremist organizations near the Algerian border. Those groups sometimes come down to these highly populated neighborhoods and recruit youth directly.

And our other community Manouba is the base of a violent extremist organization called Ansar Sharia, so there you have youth who have family links to these violent groups.

In addition to this type of contact with these groups, youth often feel marginalized and desperate and do not have job opportunities or safe spaces for them to spend their time. There is also a lot of resentment toward local authorities, and in some cases, there has been abuse or harassment by police or security forces. There is a high level of drug use in many places.

These groups come to the youth offering a sense of purpose, identity, belonging. We also found that most youth are looking for a material reward when they engage with violent extremist organizations. These are the push and pull factors that make youth vulnerable to recruitment.

How did ETTYSAL determine whether youth were experiencing these push and pull factors?

Mrad: In the ETTYSAL model, we are looking specifically at the behaviors of youth, not his or her identity. We evaluate each youth on individual, family-related and peer-related risk factors, and we also look at the context. Individual risk factors include neutralization of guilt, impulsive risk-taking and critical life events such as the death of a family member.

Family risk factors include weak parental supervision and family radicalization, if for example, a father or someone else in the family has been radicalized. Negative influence can also come from peers.

This is a model that was adapted from the Youth Services Eligibility Tool (YSET), which has been used in Los Angeles and in Central America to measure youth risk of engaging with gangs. Under YSET, there are nine risk factors. When we applied this idea to the Tunisian context and to violent extremist organizations, we added additional risk factors for religious extremism, which we actually found to be very low in the youth we worked with.

We also added a social vulnerability factor. This is related more to the context, such as lack of job opportunities, relationships between the youth and the local government and the police. Eighty-seven percent of the youth we worked with showed this risk factor.

So, the overall approach is a model that recognizes and addresses the combination of risk factors that can lead a youth to join a violent extremist organization. For this pilot program, which was implemented in partnership with the University of Tunis, we determined that if a youth is showing six or more of the 12 total risk factors, they are high risk and eligible for intervention.

Once this data is collected, how does intervention begin?

Mrad: Once the data is compiled and analyzed by the University of Tunis team, the youth and his family consent to be engaged in the program and are paired with a trained family counselor. We worked with about 100 total youth and had 12 family counselors in the two target areas.

Counselors and staff first get together for a strategic meeting in which they look closely at each youth’s profile and determine the priorities. Then the counselor begins working with the family and the youth in the home. They identify problem behaviors, not just as seen by the counselor, but as seen by the family and the individual. Counselors meet with the family in a group setting and also work with youth one-on-one to try to find solutions to change these risky behaviors.

We also worked with local associations to organize group activities for the youth. For example, to address the common feeling of not belonging, not identifying strongly as Tunisians, not knowing anything about our history, they would visit historical sites. And these activities would complement the work of the counselors in the home, allowing them to feel part of society and be introduced to positive peers.

Why focus on the entire family?

Mrad: For one, the family itself could be a root of the problem. The youth could be living in a violent family or a radicalized extremist family, so the influence is direct.

We also found that mothers are the ones who can see the early stages of her son engaging with violent extremism. We had cases, for example, when a youth starts being attracted to extremist ideology, one day he comes home and forbids his mother from watching TV.

The model also emphasizes that we identify not just the risk factors, but the strengths of the youth. And who can reinforce those strengths if not the mother and father?

ETTYSAL was successful in part because of the role of the family in Tunisia in the youths’ life. We live in a conservative society where a young person doesn’t leave home until he or she gets married. So it’s extremely important that we work with those connections between the youth and his family and address factors with the family as a whole, not isolating the youth.

What were some of the results of the program?

Mrad: We had tremendous results in a short period of time. First, we were very happy to see that 95 percent of the youth reduced their number of risk factors to below six, meaning essentially they are no longer eligible for counseling and no longer at high risk for radicalization to a violent extremist organization.

If we look at one risk factor in particular, family radicalization was decreased by 84 percent. And with that I have to stress the importance of our partner the University of Zitouna. We had an excellent doctor of Islamic studies who facilitated discussion about religious culture, exploring topics such as what is the role of the father toward his son in Islam? What does the prophet say about jihad? She met with youth and their families, and her roundtables gave a lot of clarification and brought light to certain incorrect perceptions.

We also saw a significant drop in the impulsive risk-taking factor, which was reduced by 45 percent. I credit that to the family counselors who worked with the youth so that they can better control their actions and overcome violent feelings.

Each youth also developed an exit plan based on their strengths. That could mean engaging in a job, small project or civil society work. We still have family counselors who call and say that this young woman got microfinancing to pursue a project, or that young man got a job as a mechanic.

After the counseling, we have families who are better established, and the relationship among the family members has improved tremendously. The youth now is occupied and constructively spending his time, and he’s not being driven by an attraction to violent extremism. We ended up providing him with a positive alternative.

What are some of your biggest takeaways after a year?

Mrad: I can confirm 100 percent that this public health model works. And that the results show enormous similarities in the risk factors of youth for engaging with a violent extremist organization or a violent gang.

We’ll need to do this with more youth to scientifically validate the model, but I can say that after the pilot, we proved that the public health model is applicable in this context.

Throughout the program, the counseling team was looking at youth not as a problem, but as part of the solution. It’s extremely important that the youth were heard and had an opportunity to express themselves.

We did not treat them like something was wrong with their identity; we were looking at behaviors and working specifically on improving those behaviors, but there’s a huge respect to that youth and he is part of the solution.

Tunisia – ETTYSAL

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Program.
2 min read.

In Tunisia, high levels of youth unemployment, drug use, grievances with the government and an expected influx of terrorist fighters returning home from foreign conflicts left many young people vulnerable to recruitment by violent extremist organizations.

To build resilience against radicalization and violent extremism in the face of these converging factors, a pilot project called ETTYSAL used an intensive and evidence-based family counseling program with 100 high-risk youth.

ETTYSAL, which translates to “reaching out” in Arabic, focused on changing risky behaviors and strengthening protective factors for youth in vulnerable neighborhoods in the cities of Manouba and Kasserine.

The 18-month pilot project was funded by the U.S. State Department and implemented by Creative Associates International.

High-risk youth participated in one-year family counseling and group activities, programming modeled after Creative’s crime and violence prevention projects in Latin America and the Caribbean.

ETTYSAL evaluated 600 youth using an adapted version of the Youth Services Eligibility Tool (YSET), which has been used in Los Angeles, Latin America and the Caribbean to measure youth risk for engaging with gangs. The diagnostic was adjusted to the Tunisian context, and risk factors including social vulnerability and religious extremism were added to the tool. Of 600 youth tested, 100 presented at least six of the 12 risk factors that placed them at risk and were placed in the pilot.

A dozen trained counselors worked with youth one-on-one and in conjunction with their families to identify and change risky behaviors, based on individualized service plans for each youth. Counselors also worked to strengthen family cohesion, a sense of belonging and parents’ role in shaping youths’ behaviors through activities like building a family tree.

In its short lifespan, the ETTYSAL project made a significant impact in the lives of these youth. After completing the family counseling, 95 percent of participants were no longer eligible for the program, meaning they showed fewer than six risk factors and were no longer at high risk for radicalization to violent extremism.

Libya – LEGAL-Dustur

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Program.
2 min read.

Funded by the US-Middle East Partnership Initiative, the four-year Libyan Engagement and Governance through Applied Learning (LEGAL) project assisted the Government of Libya to coordinate the process of drafting the constitution. The project was implemented by Creative Associates International.

Through the project, Creative worked closely with the Libya’s Constitutional Drafting Assembly to mediate conflicts within the assembly and facilitate discussions to reach a consensus on a final draft of the constitution.  In close partnership with the project, Libya’s Constitutional Drafting Assembly reached a landmark moment in July 2017 when it approved a final draft of the constitution, paving the way for a popular referendum.

As a follow-up to the constitutional work accomplished by the LEGAL project, the LEGAL-Dustur project built a greater understanding of the proposed constitution among key stakeholders. It is also facilitated the movement toward a constitutional referendum.

The project assisted the Constitutional Drafting Assembly in its outreach with the Libyan government, and with the country’s Amazigh and Tebu minority populations. It also provided continuing technical support to the Constitutional Drafting Assembly on questions surrounding the draft itself, and with any legal and political challenges it may face leading up to a referendum.

The project facilitated the first-ever official meetings between the Constitutional Drafting Assembly and Libya’s House of Representatives, which has been widely credited in helping move the constitutional process forward. LEGAL-Dustur will continue to facilitate the Constitutional Drafting Assembly and Libyan government engagement, while broadening inclusivity through outreach efforts with Libya’s minority populations.

Moroccan leaders share insights on local CVE approaches

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Posted March 29, 2018 .
By Jillian Slutzker .
4 min read.

To stem violent extremism, solutions must be tailored to local drivers and needs, said three Moroccan leaders on the frontlines of community-based efforts to counter violent extremism.

Hailing from neighborhoods with high levels of violent extremist activity and recruitment in the cities of Fès, Salé and Casablanca, the religious and civil society leaders have assessed local risk factors for violent extremism and implemented tailored interventions as part of the Fostering Peaceful Communities in Morocco project. They shared their insights with CVE practitioners in Washington, D.C. at the Alliance for Peacebuilding on March 22.

From preparing religious students to prevent extremism to training unemployed mothers to recognize the signs of radicalization, the interventions had two critical characteristics in common that made them successful, according to Yasmina Sarhrouny, Chief of Party for the project, which is implemented by Creative Associates International and funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. They were locally driven and collaborative.

“As CVE practitioners, we see a lot of projects that succeed and many others that don’t because they are designed elsewhere. They are cookie cutter or they don’t necessarily bring all of the players together around the table,” said Sarhrouny.

Abdeljalil Anouar from Casablanca, Abdelilah Abdellaoui from Salé and Soukaina Sriti from Fès.
Abdeljalil Anouar from Casablanca, Abdelilah Abdellaoui from Salé and Soukaina Sriti from Fès.

Local needs, local solutions

Across the panelists’ three communities, religious and civil society leaders came together to understand local risk factors for extremism and design smart interventions to mitigate them.

For example, panelist Abdeljalil Anouar and his Casablanca team found a lack of religious knowledge to be a risk factor for extremism, while religious literacy could be a force for prevention. With this insight, they decided to equip the next generation of religious leaders with tools to positively educate their communities and support prevention.

“We chose to work with the students of the Hassan II School for Islamic Studies because they were already enabled with the technical skills but we could enable them with the soft skills and communication skills to work better in their communities,” said Anouar, who is a high-school Arabic teacher in addition to his work with this initiative.

The project marks the first time Hassan II Mosque has collaborated with an international organization on a CVE-focused project.

In Salé, the local team discovered that no organizations were working with women and mothers on CVE, therefore missing a critical opportunity to bolster prevention. They designed a program to equip women with tools to prevent radicalization within their families and communities.

The program trained 60 mothers and unemployed young women on how to detect hate speech and signs of extremism, recognize signs of radicalization and provide psychological support to loved ones at risk for radicalization.

“It was received very positively,” said panelist Abdelilah Abdellaoui, a civil society leader who supported the initiative. “Most of the mothers went back to the community with the training and what they did in the classroom. Often, they came back telling us about a friend or a neighbor who wanted to do the training as well.”

Abdellaoui’s group is currently developing a CVE manual of the course material that will be shared with the broader community.

In Fès, panelist Soukaina Sriti, a civil society leader, is deploying an educational and human rights approach to promote a culture of tolerance in four secondary schools. The program engaged youth who were at elevated risk of radicalization, teaching them how to engage more positively and peacefully with their peers, their schools, and their communities.

The Fostering Peaceful Communities project is also operating in Beni Mellal, though the representative of this town could not attend the event. The Beni Mellal team works with under-educated youth and adults exposed to violence and radical discourse, helping them to build their life skills, enhance resilience and improve their sense of belonging in the community.

By working through local organizations that had already garnered trust and buy-in in their communities, the project could effectively reach individuals at the greatest risk for radicalization and the community members best able to support those at-risk individuals in their families and neighborhoods, said Sarhrouny.

She added that it was also essential to bring local government officials on board from the beginning and to keep them engaged in the process. This both helps to dispel suspicions about the program and to build the partnerships and capacity to support sustainable CVE efforts. Through this collaboration, she says elected officials have begun to reshape their conceptions of CVE as something larger than law enforcement.

“They began to see that it takes looking at youth engagement, citizen engagement and getting to these kids so they aren’t at risk before they go toward extremism,” she said.

The local leaders from Morocco visited with CVE practitioners in Washington, DC.
The local leaders from Morocco visited with CVE practitioners, religious leaders and government officials on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. to share their insights on local CVE programming.

Changing attitudes

Across all four initiatives, panelists reported that the most significant change they observed in participants was a change in attitude about the nature of violent extremism and their role in helping to prevent it.

“Students changed their idea on extremism,” said Soukaina Sriti, who led the secondary school workshops in Fès.  “In the beginning they though that extremism was something only related to religion, but in the end evaluation they connected hate to extremism in other forms.”

She noted that the youth also made plans to pass on what they had learned to their peers through similar workshops.

As the Fostering Peaceful Communities in Morocco project continues to measure the impact of these four initiatives, it is the change of attitudes that symbolizes a major step forward for preventing and countering violent extremism, said Chief of Party Sarhrouny.

“When you get into these types of trainings, when mothers start understanding and having these conversations among themselves, for example, that is the big change of attitude that can make a big difference in a community,” she said.

One in five children is not accessing education: UNESCO report

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Posted March 12, 2018 .
By Natalie Lovenburg .
4 min read.

During the past five years, the global growth of the number of children in classrooms has been stagnant, according to recently published UNESCO Institute for Statistics data.

About 263 million children—one in five children— adolescents and youth worldwide are out of school, the U.N. agency reported. Since 2012, the number of school-aged children and youth in classrooms around the world has increased by only about 1 million a year.

“These new figures show starkly the size of the gap that needs to be closed to ensure universal access to education,” said UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay in a press release. “We need much more comprehensive and targeted approaches together with more resources to reach those children and youth who are denied the right to education, with a special emphasis on girls and on improving the quality of education for all.”

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest out-of-school rates for all age groups, and accounts for more than half (34 million) of the 63 million out-of-school children of primary age, according to the report.

Countries with the highest out-of-school rates also tend to be among the poorest countries in the world. Poverty levels are also closely linked to gender disparities in education.

The UNESCO data stresses that a business-as-usual approach will not succeed in achieving universal primary and secondary education by 2030.

Young boy in Nigerian classroom speaking.
To meet and sustain the growing demand for education, today’s teaching and learning approaches must be effective, efficient and able to address the needs of diverse populations in complex environments.

Ensuring education amid crisis

This call for new approaches is particularly critical given the swelling rates of displaced persons and refugees across the globe, including millions of school-aged children and youth, points out Eileen St. George, Director of Education in Conflict at Creative, who read the published report.

For these out-of-school children and youth, gaps in education can be compounded by the trauma of conflict and displacement. Years out of school can set learners back in literacy and life skills; unhealed trauma can negatively affect their life outcomes.

“To keep children and youth in the classroom – especially in conflict and crisis environments – we need increasingly innovative approaches to minimize disruption to learning,” says St. George, adding that non-formal community-based learning centers can help to provide basic education to displaced learners when formal schools are not an option.

Regardless of the forum for education, a sense of normalcy and security is particularly critical to the development of these vulnerable learners, she adds.

“It is essential for schools to create a safe environment for students to receive a quality education and to heal through psychosocial support and Social Emotional Learning,” she says.

In conflict-affected countries like Afghanistan and Nigeria, Creative is implementing multiple education projects that integrate Social Emotional Learning activities into their curriculum.

“By providing Social Emotional Learning support in the classroom, educators in complex settings like Nigeria and Afghanistan, can create a powerful learning environment that fosters healing, support, motivation and ultimately success of vulnerable children and youth,” says St. George. “However, to achieve this we must also turn our attention to the well-being of teachers, enabling them to effectively nurture the children and youth in their classrooms.”

Empowering girls through education

UNESCO also finds that around the world, girls continue to face barriers in receiving an education.

The UNESCO figures show that in sub-Saharan Africa, girls of every school-age group are more likely to be excluded from education than boys. For every 100 boys of primary age out of school, there are 123 girls denied the right to education.

Traditional attitudes and cultural beliefs, poverty, early marriage and pregnancy and violence against women and girls, are among the many barriers that keep girls from accessing quality education.

Karen Tietjen, Director of Instructional Systems and Governance at Creative, points to the USAID Read to Succeed project’s “whole school, whole teacher, whole learner” approach as an example of an effective way to counter school dropouts – especially for vulnerable girls.

Creative’s “whole child, whole teacher, whole school, whole system” approach addresses critical supply and demand factors that affect learning, teaching, management, parental participation and responsiveness to children’s needs.

“When girls stop going to school because of household responsibilities, early pregnancy or other barriers, they are closing the door to a brighter future,” she says. “The Read to Success project in Zambia provided psychosocial tools and counseling support needed to help learners succeed in school and in life.”

Tietjen says the education project trained guidance and counseling teachers who also mobilized a cadre of energetic and effective youth allies to help support vulnerable students.

Called Agents of Change, these groups of adolescents worked side by side guidance and counseling teachers to deliver important messages to their fellow classmates about staying in school, practicing healthy behaviors and making smart choices.

“With a support system, we witnessed vulnerable Zambian girls staying in school despite dealing with social, economic and psychological challenges outside of the classroom,” says Tietjen.

“When girls have the opportunity to access quality education, they are empowered to gain the knowledge and skills needed to help break the cycle of poverty for themselves, their families and communities,” she says.

Morocco – Fostering Peaceful Communities

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Taking an innovative approach to building a network of resilience to counter violent extremism at the local level, the Fostering Peaceful Communities in Morocco project supported local religious and civil society leaders to work together in their own communities to address the factors that make youth more vulnerable to radicalization and recruitment by violent extremist organizations.

The project, funded by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, worked with 14 local leaders, from male and female Islamic scholars to women leading youth-focused organizations, in four areas that have historically been susceptible to violent extremist radicalization and recruitment, particularly among youth.

The communities—Beni Mellal, Casablanca, Fès, and Salé—were selected based on the presence of extremist activity, the level of grievances fueled by marginalization and inequity, and the scarcity of other internationally-funded projects focused on countering violent extremism. Leaders were selected based on their roles as influencers in their respective regions.

Creative Associates International implemented the project in partnership with the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy and several local and regional partners.

Through hands-on collaborative trainings, local religious and civil society leaders as well as community activists strengthened their capacities to identify and address drivers of extremism within their communities. Participants learned how to recognize and understand factors that can increase vulnerability among youth to radicalization and recruitment, and gained practical skills for responding on a local level to reach those most at-risk.

Taking their knowledge back home, these leaders conducted assessments that identified potential vulnerabilities to radicalization and recruitment into violent extremist organizations. With this data, they developed and implemented evidence-based programmatic interventions at the community level to address these drivers of extremism and foster community cohesion and youth inclusion.

To share lessons learned in building resilience and reducing risk to violent extremism, the project established a network of trained community leaders to facilitate the collection and distribution of best practices throughout Morocco as well as with experts in countering violent extremism in the United States.

#LiteracyDay: Tracking, texting and teaching to boost reading around the globe

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Posted September 6, 2017 .
2 min read.

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#LiteracyDay:

Tracking, texting and teaching to boost reading around the globe

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Around the globe, students are enthusiastically powering on mobile phones to read words on the screen and turning the paper pages of colorful storybooks. From Afghanistan to Zambia, Creative Associates International’s education programs foster a love of reading by creating digital and print stories for young learners to sharpen their literacy skills. When children have access to reading materials–whether digital or traditional books– their understanding of the world around them broadens and possibilities are limitless.

Creative is celebrating International Literacy Day’s theme of “Literacy in a Digital World” with four stories and two interviews from experts on how reading plays a vital role in equipping students for a successful future. Join the conversation on social media using #LiteracyDay.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]

IN ZAMBIA, PHONES BECAME BOOKS TO BOOST LITERACY

 

Ayan Kishore of Creative’s Development Lab reflects on an innovative project to bring crowdsourced local stories to rural families through phones, and what it might mean for literacy and tech.

Read full story[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]Zambian girls looking at mobile phone.

 

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]Afghan girls reading books in classroom.

 

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JOURNEY WITHIN AFGHANISTAN: INSIDE CREATIVE’S DIGITAL BOOK TRACKING SYSTEM

A new innovative book tracking technology system is minimizing the interference in deliveries and ensuring that textbooks find their way to students and teachers who need them the most.

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READING EXPERT SHARES THE POWER OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO ENCOURAGE LITERACY

 

Creative Associates International’s Senior Reading Specialist, Joy du Plessis, discusses the important role story illustrations in learning and teaching materials play to improve reading education.

Read full story[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]Nigerian girl reading book in classroom.

 

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]Moroccan children reading in classroom.

 

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NEW PROJECT TO STRENGTHEN EARLY GRADE LITERACY SKILLS IN MOROCCO

 

A new early grade reading and writing program will support the Government of Morocco to develop a national literacy program to improve literacy skills in grades 1 through 4.

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A NEW CHAPTER FOR MULTILINGUAL LITERACY IN MOZAMBIQUE

 

A year into the Let’s Read! program, Creative is witnessing active participation and ownership by the Mozambique government, says Pieter Potter, Chief of Party.

Read full story[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]Tanzanian child reading.

 

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]Nigerian women sewing.

 

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COMMUNITIES RALLY SUPPORT FOR EDUCATION IN REMOTE NIGERIAN VILLAGES

 

New non-formal learning centers in northern Nigeria are galvanizing communities to further invest in education.

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New project to strengthen early grade literacy skills in Morocco

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Posted July 19, 2017 .
4 min read.

A new early grade reading and writing program will support the Government of Morocco to develop a national literacy program to improve literacy skills in grades 1 through 4, Creative Associates International announced.

Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and led by Creative Associates International, the Reading for Success – National Program for Reading will support the development of quality Arabic language reading materials.

Reading for Success – National Program for Reading aims to improve classroom instruction; expand remedial and extra-curricular reading opportunities at school, at home and in the community; and improve national learning and assessment systems for reading and writing.

Starting with focused support of more than 8,500 schools in the regions of Fez-Meknes, Rabat-Kenitra, Souss-Massa and Oriental, the USAID program aims to equip the Moroccan government with the expertise and tools to replicate, scale up and sustain early grade literacy in all 12 regions across the country.

Partnering with the Ministry of National Education, Professional Training, Higher Education and Scientific Research, Creative will help to establish a reading-supportive policy, investment and programmatic framework, backed by an informed analysis of reading assessments and evidence-based best practices supported by years of on-the-ground collaboration.

“We’re pleased to build on a successful history of collaboration with the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training and local partners in improving child and youth learning and to make a positive impact in Morocco’s schools, families and communities,” says Karen Tietjen, Director of Instructional Systems and Governance at Creative.

In recent years, Morocco has made great improvements in advancing quality education. However, with only 77 percent of Moroccan youth ages 15 to 24 literate, the country continues to face literacy barriers.

Evidence shows the problem starts in the early primary grades. On the 2011 Progress in International Literacy Study, Moroccan Grade 4 students scored the lowest among 45 participating countries.

Poor reading skills contribute to the high repetition and dropout rates in primary school and undermine the academic performance of students who remain in school. Most children enter primary school unfamiliar with Modern Standard Arabic, the language of instruction.

Few early grade teachers are trained to teach reading and lack appropriate materials and techniques. Unfortunately, not all parents are involved in reading support, and few out-of-school opportunities exist for students to practice and enjoy reading.

To tackle these challenges, Creative is implementing the Reading for Success – National Program for Reading program in partnership with organizations recognized for their expertise in early grade reading, measurement and assessment and digital delivery of education programs. These partners include the University of Oregon, Management Systems International and Al-Akhawayn University.

A legacy of effective partnership

The Reading for Success – National Program for Reading program builds on previous successful partnerships between Creative and the Moroccan government that delivered quality education and addressed a wide range of educational barriers. These programs have refined reading instruction, bolstered teacher professional development and strengthened institutions.

“Creative has a deep understanding of Morocco’s education sector by implementing programs in the country for over three decades,” says Abdelkader Ezzaki, Ph.D., Program Manager for the Reading for Success – National Program for Reading. “The program will deliver innovative approaches to reading and writing that will have positive, sustainable outcomes for Morocco’s education system.”

In the early 2000s, Creative implemented the USAID-funded Morocco Education for Girls Project that supported the Ministry of Education’s gender strategy.

Under the five-year Improving Training for Quality Advancement in National Education project, Creative worked with the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training to improve the professional skills of middle school teachers and stem the tide of dropouts by expanding school-level support and developing more relevant teacher training curriculum and improved delivery.

The project supported the in-service professional development of more than 3,000 teachers and more than 4,400 newly recruited teacher trainers received pre-service coursework. Creative’s team also designed and piloted the middle school reading program, working with the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and regional education centers to develop reading kits for subject teachers, train a core group of master trainers and assess student learning outcomes.

Building on the middle school reading pilot, Creative implemented  the Reading for Academic Skills and Individual Development in Middle Schools project with Morocco’s Ministry of Education and Vocational Training to help middle school students improve literacy skills for subject learning, strengthen teacher capacity to integrate reading comprehension methods into their content areas, and enhance teacher training and coaching programs for reading.

The project addressed specific needs of adolescent learners, such as low motivation and late-emergent reading problems, provided evidence-based reading instruction, and changed management to orient trainers to new roles and responsibilities. Through the project, students’ performance in reading improved over time, showing a 13.68 percent increase in reading test scores.

In addition to helping to secure gains in education, Creative implemented the four-year Promise Pathway project, which provided safe and productive employment alternatives for youth of legal working age, through vocational training and referral assistance that linked jobseekers with a network of service providers.

The Promise Pathways project provided services to more than 3,000 children ages 6 to 14 and over 1,300 youth ages 15 to 17, helping them find opportunities for education and safe employment and supporting their families to regain stability.

Most recently in 2016 to 2017, Creative supported the USAID-Human and Institutional Capacity Development assessment of the Ministry of National Education capacities in the areas of school management, extra-curriculum and student evaluation.