Workforce development expert joins Creative

July 28, 2015

2 min read

[vc_row full_width=”” parallax=”” parallax_image=””][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]

Workforce development expert joins Creative Associates International

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”” parallax=”” parallax_image=””][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner el_class=”” width=”7/12″][vc_column_text]An expert in developing economic growth projects that have improved the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people has joined Creative Associates International, the global development organization announced.

Katy Vickland, an expert in workforce development—inclusive value chains and local capacity building—will guide Creative’s teams working to address the challenges of high unemployment and poverty in vulnerable groups such as at-risk youth.

Vickland specializes in developing public-private partnerships for workforce development programs that strengthen connections among youth, business, civil society and training institutions.

“To be effective, it is imperative that workforce development programs be targeted to the needs of employers in growing sectors,” says Vickland. “Even in high unemployment environments such as Central America, we typically find job vacancies going unfilled because workforce programs aren’t preparing youth with the vocational and soft skills they need to succeed.”

From Afghanistan to China to Central America, Creative’s workforce development programs partner with governments, the private sector and civil society to develop targeted vocational and “soft skills” training programs to ensure that the capacities of the workforce match the demands of the market. Soft skills are the skills, behaviors and attitudes that enable workers to perform well on the job and in achieving other life goals.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner el_class=”” width=”5/12″][featured_post_func title=”Creative’s approach to workforce development” link=”www.creativeassociatesinternational.com/multimedia/washington-d-c-creatives-approach-to-workforce-development/” link_title=”Watch Video” video_v=”134766477″ description=”Creative approaches workforce development as part of a comprehensive approach to youth development as well as risk reduction, matching training programs with the needs of employers in growing sectors and opening opportunities for individuals and their communities.” img=”12624″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Prior to Creative, Vickland was a Vice President of CARANA Corp., where she managed workforce and value chain development projects across Latin America and the Caribbean—from training more than 14,000 workers in El Salvador for a new or improved job, to assisting hundreds of Nicaraguan youth to start or grow a successful small business.

In her more than 25 years of experience leading successful workforce development and economic growth initiatives for public sector, nonprofit and corporate clients, Vickland has led project teams across the globe including Latin and Central America, Eastern and Central Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States.

She holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy, with a concentration in International Development, from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Carleton College.

About Creative Associates International

Creative Associates International works with underserved communities by sharing expertise and experience and building local capacity in education, economic growth, governance and transitions from conflict to peace.

Based in Washington, D.C., Creative has active projects in more than 15 countries. Since 1977, it has worked in nearly 90 countries and on almost every continent. Recognized for its ability to work rapidly, flexibly and effectively in conflict-affected environments, Creative is committed to generating long-term sustainable solutions to complex development problems.

Started by four enterprising women with diverse backgrounds, Creative has grown to become one of the leaders among the U.S. private sector implementers of global development projects. Creative is minority owned and operated.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

What’s fundamental to achieving SDGs? Preventing school dropout

July 17, 2015

4 min read

The Third International Conference on Financing for Development has concluded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with hopeful aspirations for financing the ambitious UN Sustainable Development Goals related to education, including $400 billion in commitments from the multilateral and regional development banks during the next three years.

As stakeholders sort out their priorities for the post-2015 development agenda, it is critical that policies, programs and significant resources focus on preventing school dropout. Doing so will reinforce the anticipated goal of ensuring all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education by 2030.

What’s at stake

While completion of primary school is up overall, UNESCO projects that by the end of 2015, only one in six children in low and middle income countries – almost 100 million kids – will drop out before completing their primary education. The projection is even more staggering for low income countries, where more than one in three children are expected to drop out.

The worldwide rate of fifth grade completion for 2015 is approximately 75 percent. In South and West Asia, the projection falls to 64 percent and, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 58 percent.

In 2015, only 13 out of 106 countries will see 97 percent of their youth population finish school.

The gender component

It may come as a surprise that boys, overall, are more likely to leave school early. Boys tend to drop out of school at a rate of 26 percent as compared with 20 percent of girls. Once enrolled, girls stand an equal or better chance than boys of continuing to the upper grades of primary school.

Extreme poverty can affect attainment, however, with the poorest girls still facing a severe disadvantage over the poorest boys in entering and completing primary education. Similarly, at the lower secondary level, girls’ attainment remains a significant concern in poorer countries.

However, in richer countries, it is boys who are more likely to dropout in lower secondary, and that trend is even more evident in upper secondary. In fact, girls’ graduation rates from upper secondary school exceed those of boys in all OECD countries except Germany.

School dropout factors

There are numerous factors that play a role in whether kids stay in school or not, many of which also pose a problem for initial enrollment: poverty; school affordability; quality or relevance of education; unsafe or insecure school environments; etc.

Poor children are the most vulnerable, leaving school to take up paid employment, pulled into household chores or, in the case of girls, teen pregnancy or pressure for early marriage. The causes vary from country to country, and within countries and regions.

A range of interventions aimed at expanding access and improving quality have helped to reduce dropout. Accessibility initiatives include offering girls’ scholarships, cash transfers, school fee abolition; school uniforms; school feeding programs and creating safer school environments. In terms of improving quality, there are initiatives to improve teacher training and support, provide relevant and modern learning materials and integrate technology and gender-sensitive practices

Yet, school dropout remains a persistent concern.

The new Sustainable Development Goals call for a greater focus on reaching the most marginalized groups: the poorest, the disabled, ethnic minorities and children in conflict countries. These marginalized groups are the most vulnerable to school dropout and in order to realize the goal of greater educational equity, we have to confront the issue of school dropout.

To do this, the international development community must pay attention to approaches that have been proven to have an impact and can be taken to scale.

SDPP: A proven approach to mitigating school dropout

Successful solutions must be tailored to each country with a thorough understanding of the factors that a fueling dropout.

Creative Associates International has undertaken a particularly successful approach to preventing school dropout that illustrates a customizable solution that can be widely replicated.

The U.S. Agency for International Development funded School Dropout Prevention Pilot was implemented by Creative in Cambodia, India, Tajikistan and Timor-Leste.

Creative’s experts closely scrutinized the factors of dropout, identifying the most severely affected groups, grades and/or geographic areas, and analyzed the relevant risk factors before designing, implementing and evaluating interventions to keep at-risk kids in school.

A central feature of Creative’s School Dropout Prevention Pilot is an Early Warning System that uses readily-accessible school data to identify students at risk of dropping out, and support teachers, families and communities to address their needs. The pilot program also incorporates a second intervention, including for some countries student-centered, hands-on after-school programs, tutoring, computer labs, in-school recreation, personal development curricula and social support programs.

“One reason the program is so effective in reducing student dropouts is because it is a community-wide effort,” writes U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia William E. Todd. “The SDPP Program works directly with students, teachers, and community groups to help children stay in school and work towards a better future.”

It is precisely this sort of tailored approach that can be instrumental in keeping kids in school and ensuring that they are equipped for success in tertiary education and meaningful employment.

Preventing school dropout is fundamental to the success of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Cris Revaz serves as Senior Education Counsel, with expertise in global education advocacy.

Integrated Qur’anic Education: Nigeria Case Study

July 9, 2015

2 min read

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Integrated Qur’anic Education: Nigeria Case Study

By JC Finley

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”” parallax=”” parallax_image=””][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]The goal of universal basic education for Nigeria is challenging. A significant number of children – more than 9.5 million – aren’t enrolled in formal schools, though they attend Qur’anic centers. These centers often lacked regulation and funding, leading to substandard instruction and low retention.

Nigeria plans to overhaul these Qur’anic (Almajiri) schools to meet education standards while retaining their faith-based tradition. The plan centers on integration: incorporating core subjects such as literacy and math, along with vocational training, into the Qur’anic curriculum.

Building on the Nigerian government’s existing policy framework and in partnership with local NGOs, the U.S. Agency for International Development launched and funded the Northern Education Initiative, which was implemented by Creative Associates International.

“Central to NEI’s approach was to collaborate with host-country counterparts to identify the right starting point and strategy and include built-in mechanisms that could be tailored to states’ needs and entry points,” wrote Creative Senior Associate Semere Solomon wrote in his assessment of the project. “The NEI approach encouraged simplicity, maximum utility, and cost-effectiveness consistent with the country’s ability to sustain the system.”

In “Integrated Qur’anic Education: Nigeria Case Study,” Solomon, an expert in education and civil society programs, examined the nature of non-formal schools and assessed the lessons learned and best practices of the Northern Education Initiative.

The case study identifies strengths of the Integrated Qur’anic Education, including the importance of public outreach and program advocacy within the community, as well as areas for future consideration, such as expanding integrated vocational training.

Collaboration at all levels, especially within the community, was integral to the success of the Northern Education Initiative. “Community coalitions act as the glue that binds community decision makers together, providing a venue for discussion – and action.”

The model was implemented in 80 non-formal schools in the States of Bauchi and Sokoto in 20 Local Government Education Authorities (LGEAs)

Click here to read the case study in full.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Tracking social media may uncover potential electoral violence

July 6, 2015

4 min read

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Tracking social media may uncover potential electoral violence

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”” parallax=”” parallax_image=””][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]As more than 70 percent of Guyana’s population headed to the polls to vote in the 2015 national elections, a team of election and technology experts in Washington, DC, were busy tracking thousands of social media feeds from the country, searching for threats of pending electoral violence.

Guyana has experienced violence in many of its elections since 1992. Voting blocs have tended to fall along ethnic lines, aggravating existing cleavages and igniting protest over contested elections results.

With the proliferation of social media enabling real time reporting by citizens, the opportunities to track these types of electoral violence outbreaks have multiplied in recent years. Amidst the social media noise, citizens are sharing valuable real time information that can help identify and mitigate electoral violence.

“Using real time social media tracking to improve electoral process in practice has grown significantly in the last few years,” says Luther Jeke, a Technology for Development Fellow at Creative. “If violence erupts in a particular election, the hours or minutes saved by having identified the situation through social media posts could make a significant difference in response.”

In the innovative pilot study to monitor Guyana’s 2015 presidential election in May 2015, Creative Associates International’s Electoral Education and Integrity team and Technology for Development experts used two social media data mining software programs to analyze Guyanese Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, blogs and online news sources, searching for key words that could be red flags of impending electoral violence.

Mining social media for keywords and hashtags from #Votelikeaboss (a voter mobilization campaign of the Guyana National Youth Council) to “Guyana assault” and candidates’ names, Creative’s team tracked the entire elections cycle—looking for threats in the pre-elections phase, polling station vulnerability on Election Day and potential protests and flash mobs after results were announced.

The team communicated their findings throughout the process to on-the-ground electoral observers with the Carter Center and the Organization for American States.

Forecaster of electoral violence

In recent years, social media has emerged as a conveyor of threats during election cycles, says Jeke—for example, citing incidences of intimidating text messages being sent to voters of certain tribes in Kenya’s 2007 elections. In Haiti’s 2010 presidential election, Jeke recounts, a video was posted online showing the shooting of a supporter of presidential candidate Michel Martelly in order to intimidate other supporters from hitting the polls.

Citizens have also used social media to document electoral violence.

In the aftermath of Iran’s 2009 presidential elections, a video of the killing of 26-year-old protester Nedā Āghā-Soltān by the state-sponsored Basij militia provided evidence of a brutal post-election crackdown to those outside the country.

As a forecaster of electoral violence, social media is a relatively new tool.

“This is an emergent field of interest and our pilot project was representative of the kinds of examinations on the topic currently underway,” says Jeff Fischer, Senior Electoral Advisor at Creative.

New tools, new challenges

As electoral observers like Creative’s team explore the capabilities of social media to track threats and outbreaks of electoral violence, new challenges are emerging. The main challenge, Creative’s observers say, is verifying the veracity and authenticity of the information gathered.

“Tweets often don’t provide accurate descriptions of important details surrounding an event such as who, what, where and when,” says Christopher Smyser, an Electoral Education and Integrity Program Specialist at Creative.

To fill in the missing details and triangulate data, Smyser says that after initially registering an incident, team members searched for second references to the incident in news sources and used social media to communicate with the original author of the tweet or post.

“Had we seen something that appeared to be what we felt was a real-time threat we would have done our best to verify with other tweets or another source and then would have proceeded to pass the information along [to on-the-ground observers],” says Smyser.

Relatively peaceful, not incident-free

In the wake of the May election, the citizens of Guyana, who have witnessed repeated outbreaks of electoral violence over the last two decades, are breathing a sigh of relief. Creative’s team reported that there were no major threats or violence.

However, says Fischer, while the elections cycle was relatively peaceful, it was not entirely incident free.

“While we were able to produce alerts to possible threats, the relatively low number of incidents inhibited our making many correlations between threats and incidents” says Fischer. “But, I think that we created an early warning environment where there was sensitivity to the types of incidents which could emerge.”

Moving forward, Fischer says, large teams of electoral observers could use similar technology to create early warning systems and monitor electoral violence, ensuring a consistency in approach to deliver the most accurate results—an outlook Fischer’s team members share.

“I certainly think that the ability to monitor social media for the purpose of predicting incidents of electoral violence will be an increasingly useful new tool for electoral observers,” says Smyser. “The ability to access real-time predictions of violence or unrest could certainly help improve the safety of everyone involved in the electoral process.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Electoral violence research to boost security, deliver new tools

June 22, 2015

3 min read

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Electoral violence research to boost security, deliver new tools

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]WASHINGTON, DC—A groundbreaking new project on electoral violence will deliver innovative tools and research to support electoral management bodies and development practitioners in keeping elections secure, Creative Associates International announced.

Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the three-year “Explaining and Mitigating Electoral Violence” project will delve deep into factors contributing to electoral violence and research best practices for preventing, managing and mediating it.

“As this will be an unprecedented global study of electoral violence, it will provide researcher and practitioners with insights into such violence which were not possible before, because of the limitations on available data,” says Jeff Fischer, Senior Electoral Advisor at Creative. “There have been other global studies of electoral violence, but none have been conducted with such a comprehensive scope and methodology.”

Fischer will lead Creative’s Elections project team. Creative is partnering with the University of Glasgow, the project leader, which is headed by electoral integrity expert Professor Sarah Birch.

In 2014, elections from Thailand to Bangladesh to Afghanistan were marred by violence. In Burundi, police and protesters clashed violently in April in the lead up to the country’s 2015 presidential elections.

At all phases of the electoral cycle—from campaigns to tallying votes—electoral violence can break out, threatening citizen security and tainting the integrity of a country’s democratic process.

The project team will develop an interactive web-based early warning tool that allows practitioners to identify the warning signs of electoral violence before it ignites.

Through the project website, practitioners will be able to access information, briefs and academic publications on best approaches to prevent and manage potential threats to electoral security.

World’s largest electoral violence database

The Explaining and Mitigating Electoral Violence project will support electoral management bodies, conflict resolution practitioners and donors, from the United Nations to the Organization of American States, by aggregating and analyzing data from elections globally in which violence occurred.

Previous electoral violence databases have been limited in scope due to challenges collecting accurate and complete data.

“Data on electoral violence can be difficult to obtain,” says Fischer. “This project will provide the most complete profile of such violence when compared to other studies. The databases will serve as an archive of information to better understand the root causes of electoral violence and develop measure to prevent, manage, or mediate it.”

The resulting database will be the largest global database of electoral violence to date—made possible by integrating sophisticated “big data” research methods that catalogue specific incidents with more traditional political science research analytics.

The database will include both a global macro-level dataset of electoral violence as well as dataset based on incidents of electoral violence, tracked largely though social media and digital news.

Electoral integrity expertise

Creative’s Electoral Education and Integrity team is a leader in international electoral monitoring and security, having conducted electoral security assessments in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Colombia, Haiti, Guatemala, the Philippines, South Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Creative’s lead co-investigator on the project, Jeff Fischer, was the chief author of two U.S. Agency for International Development handbooks on Best Practices in Electoral Security and an Electoral Security Framework.

Birch, the principal investigator spearheading the University of Glasgow’s efforts on the project, is the creator of the Index of Electoral Malpractice.

The Explaining and Mitigating Electoral Violence project presents a promising opportunity and opens doors further collaboration between the two organizations in electoral security and conflict prevention, Fischer says.

About Creative Associates International

Creative Associates International works with underserved communities by sharing expertise and experience in education, economic growth, governance and transitions from conflict to peace.

Fatherhood examined in unprecedented global study

June 19, 2015

3 min read

The State of the World’s Fathers provides a data-driven examination of fatherhood around the world.

The release of the State of the World’s Fathers report, brought together a cross section of experts and delegates at the New York headquarters of the United Nations on June 16, 2015.

As Father’s Day approaches, 2015 marks a unique milestone for fatherhood around the world because a comprehensive study on the social and economic impacts of fathers such as this has never been conducted — until now.

The result is a 287-page report that touches on a wide range of issues from the economics of care-giving to analysis on gender-based violence and the proven benefits of children having positive male role models.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that cultural concepts about masculinity can have far reaching influence on a country’s development. At their worst, men act as an obstacle to change, stalling much needed progress indefinitely. But at their best, men are significant contributors to things like girls’ education and child development.

Understanding how and why such positive or negative influence takes place is the underlining motivation for the study. For example, key findings in the report detail how lives and livelihoods can be drastically altered by the presence or absence of parental leave, the degree to which care work in the home is shared equally by gender, or by a man’s attitude towards sexual and reproductive health.

These findings have particular relevance to our work at Creative Associates International:

Approximately 80 percent of men will become biological fathers at some point in their lives, and virtually all men have some connection to children – as relatives, as teachers, as coaches or simply as community members.
Fathers’ involvement has been linked to higher cognitive development and school achievement, better mental health for boys and girls, and lower rates of delinquency in sons. Studies in multiple countries have shown that father’s interaction is important for the development of empathy and social skills in sons and daughters.
Women’s household responsibilities and duties have a significant effect on their ability to work outside the home, whether they are senior executives or subsistence farmers. While women’s participation in the paid labor market has been increasing in most of the world, women are still more likely than men to have lower-paid jobs and part-time jobs, to earn less than men do,; and to be self- or family-employed, or to work in the informal sector.
Women’s unpaid care burden has the greatest impact on the poorest in society for whom additional time and income could make the most difference. In sub-Saharan Africa, 71 percent of the burden of collecting water for households falls on women and girls, who in total spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water, equivalent to a year’s worth of labor by the entire workforce in France.

In short, the State of the World’s Fathers has a lot of key insights to impart to the development field, whether practitioners focus on education, health, gender, or workforce development. At the June release, that significance was unmistakable.

During the summit at UN headquarters, I met an array of people – men hailing from to Kinshasa, women who work in corporate social responsibility and organizers of dads’ activities groups. Together, everyone realized that more can and should be done, but that there had to be a starting point.

This first-of-its-kind study builds on the perspectives of fathers from around the world and strengthens our knowledge on the subject of fatherhood with data-driven research.

In her opening remarks at the reports’ release, Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton articulated that this data not only helps measure progress but can also drive progress.

Another speaker made a similar point: “The things that matter are the things you count.”

With that in mind, tracking and analyzing fatherhood going forward can only mean better informed approaches to addressing the needs of men, women, and children globally.

Beyond keynote speeches and panel discussions, the real purpose of this effort is to work in partnership with the substantial research that already exists concerning the wellbeing of women and children. Powered by this information, everyone is better able to thrive and we’re no longer left with an enormous blind spot when it comes to gender in the world.

It’s like a Father’s Day gift for everybody.

To find out more, check out the MenCare website and download the full report on the State of the World’s Fathers.

Zambia: Mobile reading project brings local tales home

May 27, 2015

1 min read

Makhalidwe Athu is a mobile reading project bringing reading to Zambian children who often have no access to books at home. Through SMS, children will receive more than 50 local tales, crowdsourced from the community. More than 4,000 community members will be involved in the project, which is funded through All Children Reading.

Making peace with technology

May 19, 2015

By Ayan Kishore

5 min read

A technology for peacebuilding conference in Nicosia, Cyprus, showcased the innovative tools and platforms being developed and used to ease tensions and build friendships in conflicted areas. Photo by Ayan Kishore.

Just as Turkish Cypriots were electing a moderate President who supports reunification with the Republic of Cyprus, a group of technologists, artists, social scientists and activists gathered in Nicosia, its divided capital city. It was the second convention of its type: Build Peace—a forum to exchange ideas and learnings from new media and technology-enabled peace initiatives.

These peacebuilders showcased initiatives from conflicts around the world, including Creative’s efforts to empower communities through participatory resource mapping, and several fledgling initiatives received a “PEACEapp” award from the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and the United Nations Development Program.

Every award winner had developed a digital game.

One was a role-playing game in which players assume the role of an Aboriginal in Australia to combat Everyday Racism. Another was a fantasy game that allows children to be Peace Superheroes and use non-violent engagement in conflict.

Locally, researchers were building a virtual experience that would allow players to together reimagine Famagusta, a ghost town for the last four decades since it was sealed off by the Turkish army, as what a post-conflict city could look like in Cyprus.

I remember the beginning of the nascent Games for Change movement over a decade ago – possibilities and initiatives around peace gaming were bubbling. Today, might we finally be at a point to see the mainstreaming of video, online and mobile games in peacebuilding?

A dose of realism

Whether digital peacebuilding games and other peace technologies have measurable impact remains in question, but as Sheldon Himelfrab, President of the PeaceTech Lab at the United States Institute of Peace, put it to audience applause; “How do you measure the impact of your [peacetech] program? Well, how do measure the impact of money spent on war?”

However, what I find myself asking constantly is who is going to use these apps unless they are asked to do so and monitored to check they do it? Who is going to willingly play a low-fidelity game of political negotiation for fun?

Returning through the desolate streets of Cyprus’s UN buffer zone from a late night film screening about a program in Kenya that sent peace-themed text messages in the hopes of avoiding election violence, media professional Charlie Haskins brought up another issue.

The problem, he pointed out, was that the messages were sent to people who had self-selected to enroll in a program to receive them.

This is the challenge of building technology for development and peacebuilding ourselves. Realistically, no peacebuilding game or app we create will ever get the adoption and scale of commercial games such as World of Warcraft or Second Life.

When it comes to technologies we hope to use for peacebuilding, international development professionals are not in the right position to build them. We do not attract the right funding or talent to invest in building technology properly, and when the program and associated funding end, so will the deliberative mechanisms we set up to get people to use it.

Mark Nelson, the Director of the Stanford Peace Innovation Lab, emphasized that when trying to do both social innovation and technology innovation, the chances of failing are much higher. This is not something we easily take to heart as technologists in development.

But the truth of the matter is there are already technology tools and platforms that have wide adoption, run at scale, and continue to improve—tools like Twitter, Wikipedia, Kickstarter, Whatsapp, and Mixit.

We are fooling ourselves if we believe we can use public money to hack together citizen feedback apps, for example, that will sustain after we leave.

Where development technologists can contribute

There were signals at the conference that people are beginning to act on this wisdom.

For one example, the Peace Factory runs social media campaigns to reduce conflict through visual messaging. Their viral “Friend Me” campaign, which pushes Facebook users in places like Israel, Iran and Syria to friend someone from the “other” side, encourages participants to virtually get to know the other person and find out how similar they are.

These virtual connections have often led to real-world friendships.

Games for Peace uses popular commercial video games to bridge the gap between young people in conflict zones by communicating and collaborating in a virtual world. One of their programs brings Israeli and Palestinian kids to build a village together in the Middle East using Minecraft.

Two months after playing the game, the kids meet each other in the real world, by which point they are collaborators and friends.

To me, these are the sort of programs that technology for development professionals should be designing – not software programs!

At Build Peace, I learned that the hacker space in Baghdad started with a Kickstarter campaign, and that Facebook introduced peaceful icons in their chat smiley lexicon in Burma to reduce hate speech.

As development and humanitarian technologists, perhaps our role is also to advocate for commercial technology companies to design and introduce features that enable peacebuilding.

We can help them draw from what we know about social innovation, and the user research we are exposed to from conflict and disaster settings.

We can also provide training for community based organizations working toward peace on how to use this technology—how to use tools like Facebook Insights or Google Analytics that they could really benefit from.

Prototyping apps to test and demonstrate potential can be part of this advocacy, but is not the end game.

To reach the people we need to, we have to creatively design programs using existing, widely-adopted technology, train local entities to effectively use such technology, adapt the programs based on technology-enabled insights, and advocate for advancements in the tools and platforms already succeeding.

Ayan Kishore is a Senior Associate, Technology for Development, with expertise in Information communication technology applications for social good and international development.

LA’s lessons for gang violence reduction

May 18, 2015

6 min read

There has always been a certain fascination with the gang culture of Los Angeles among its residents, visitors and the music and film industry. However, LA’s title as the “gang capital,” with the most entrenched gang landscape of any city in the United States, is not just Hollywood hype.

There are more than 450 documented gangs and more than 45,000 gang members within the city limits. While quite large for a city of roughly 4 million people, these numbers do not account for the sympathizers and supporters of each individual gang member—the mothers, fathers, sisters, wives, husbands, lovers, children, immediate and extended family members, friends, former classmates, neighborhood associates.

The sphere of influence of gangs in LA is embedded in a large, complex and multigenerational network of people and neighborhoods.

From the source of the problem to the source of solutions

As the Deputy Mayor and Director of LA’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development from 2009 to 2014, Guillermo Cespedes supported city-wide strategies to reduce violence.

Nonetheless, LA has transformed itself from a prime example of the problem of gang violence in the 1990s to a leading source of potential solutions to gang violence today.

Against this backdrop, in a city steeped in lessons learned from this transformation, experts concerned with violence reduction from around the United States, Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, Canada and Europe gathered at the 4th Annual LA Gang Conference—sponsored by the Los Angeles Violence Prevention Coalition and the U.S. Agency for International Development—on May 4-5.

The LA Gang Conference is about the search for potential solutions to gang violence. It is about lessons learned and applied.

During the last three years, an increasing number of USAID-funded programs in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, have adopted, adapted and exported lessons learned in LA to initiatives that serve some of the most marginalized communities in those countries.

The shared story of gang members and extremists

This year, for the first time, the LA Gang Conference also hosted practitioners, policymakers, researchers and law enforcement personnel battling extremist groups in Jordan, Pakistan, Tunisia, East Africa and Europe—to explore how lessons learned from models developed to reduce gang violence could apply to the emerging field of Countering Violence Extremism.

The current approach to countering violent extremism has primarily focused on suppression, incarceration and attacking identity—tactics perhaps reminiscent of LA’s past failed attempts to quell gang-related violence.

Through powerful testimonies of former extremists and former gang members at the LA Gang Conference, the similarities between the two groups in how and why they got involved in such groups and eventually disengaged became evident.

In this context the similarities in their testimony outweighed the differences.

The field of Countering Violent Extremism can also learn lessons from LA on how to better stem violence, whether gang-related or extremism-driven, through prevention, intervention, re-insertion and targeted suppression.

LAPD—from “biggest gang” to modeling the rule of law

The story arch of the Los Angeles Police Department is a fascinating model for other cities. The LAPD’s suppression-driven war on gangs in the 1980s and 1990s, and its many corruption scandals, have been widely documented. These tactics earned the LAPD a reputation as LA’s “biggest gang.”

Police actions that show disregard for the rule of law are of course not unique to the LAPD, whose anti-gang “CRASH” unit saw more than 70 of its officers implicated in misconduct in the “Rampart Scandal” in the 1990s.

Similarly, law enforcement in Central America and Mexico face massive challenges of corruption and a lack of credibility in marginalized communities most in need of protection. Not surprisingly, community members often remark that they would rather deal with the gangs than the cops.

What makes LAPD the example par excellence is that it transformed itself from the “biggest gang” into one of the most forward thinking law enforcement agencies in the country.

Today, the LAPD makes constitutional arrests when needed and has blended traditional law enforcement into a tapestry of social programs and community groups that create a shared sense of responsibility for public safety in the city.

In Los Angeles, it is not illegal to belong to a gang. The LAPD now makes arrests based on the law and the behavior or action that breaks the law, as opposed to what group that specific law breaker belongs to.

LA still has gang members, but it has dramatically reduced gang violence—the real metric that matters to communities. The LAPD has stopped attacking the identity of the gang and has instead focused on the behavior of its individual members.

For Central American colleagues struggling with law enforcement-related challenges, the opportunity to listen to lessons learned directly from LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck inspires hope that similar changes can take place in their cities.

Historically, LA community activists and public health professionals vehemently rejected the role of LA’s law enforcement in reducing gang violence. Cops were viewed as the enemy, not a legitimate part of the community.

Conversely, cops viewed community activists and public health professionals as “thug huggers” who sided with gang members and refused to act responsibly by providing the police information that would help solve gang crimes.

After many years of viewing gang-related violence through a single lens, LA as a city arrived at the obvious conclusion that gang-related violence has a criminal as well as a public health component, and potential solutions had to address both.

What emerged was a shared mandate to implement a balanced, community-based, public health strategy comprised of prevention, intervention, re-entry, and relationship-based policing.

Through a series of innovative, neighborhood-based programs, LA shifted the emphasis from identity to behavior; from gang reduction to reduction of gang banging; from attacking entire neighborhoods identified as “gang neighborhoods” to arresting individuals violating the law. LA also supported other gang members who wanted to change the course of their lives ith program resources designed to help them build, rather than destroy, the fabric of their communities.

The LAPD replaced old tactics of attacking the identity of gang members, which was central to the war on gangs with data-driven social programs and targeted, relationship-based policing. This included using the best available research to identify those 10 to 15-year-olds with the highest inclination to seek out the group belonging and sense of family that gangs provide.

This strategy—which is now firmly institutionalized and deeply embedded in the DNA of the collective consciousness of LA’s municipal government and the community—is touted as the medicine that has led to a nearly 50 percent reduction in nine different categories of gang-related crime.

Applying LA’s lessons from San Pedro Sula to Amman

Los Angeles has not discovered world peace. A “mission accomplished” sign will not soon replace the famous Hollywood sign. What is indisputable, however, is that the city has found a viable and effective mechanism to problem solve around issues of gang-related violence.

Some lessons learned from the Los Angeles experience are worth exploring, adapting and applying to the context of group embedded violence.

The singular tactic of suppression is, at best, ineffective and, at worse, strengthens the identity and cohesion of the targeted group.
Prevention program tactics alone will not reduce violence that is already occurring.
A balanced approach between constitutional and compassionate law enforcement and evidence-based social programs is difficult to operationalize but is most likely to be effective.
It is impossible to reduce violence without engaging the perpetrators of violence.
Those who have chosen to disengage from the group identity in which violence is embedded are valuable assets in helping others exit the group.
Sensible public policies should create a pathway out for those that want out but need support to do so.
Efforts to prevent youth from joining groups with a propensity for violence should be directed at a much earlier age.
A four-legged, integrated strategy that includes prevention, intervention, re- entry and relationship-based policing is likely to be more effective than a single-legged tactic.

Armed with these lessons, participants in the 2015 Los Angeles Gang Conference have returned to their cities, where they each face their own challenges of reducing gang-related violence or countering violent extremism. Policymakers may draw on lessons learned from the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on gangs and the war on terror.

Having fought all these “wars” and won some battles, we should ask ourselves whether we are truly learning from the lessons learned when it comes to crime, violence and extremism, and what cities like LA can teach us about confronting these challenges.

Guillermo Cespedes is Senior Advisor at Creative and served as Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles and Director of LA’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development from 2009 to 2014.

A Tanzanian district celebrates a year of reading progress

April 28, 2015

3 min read

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A Tanzanian district celebrates a year of reading progress

By Jennifer Brookland

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]More than 1,500 people celebrated Education Week in the coastal district of Mtwara, where reading proficiency among second graders has jumped 7 percentage points in the past three years.

Guest of honor Hawa Ghasia, Mtwara’s Minister for Local Governance, spoke at the event about the role Creative Associates International’s TZ21 program had played in realizing the regional literacy improvements.

“Mtwara has managed to enter into the top 10 best performing regions in Tanzania in the national exam results of 2014,” Ghasia announced. “This great success in education is attributed to the fine work and contribution of the primary school education project, TZ21.”

Along with head teachers and school management committee members from every school, Mtwara’s District Commissioner Fatma Ally joined parents, teachers, and community members at the annual event. Local and National government has long strived to improve education in Tanzania, first by boosting enrollment, now with a focus on quality.

“One of the strengths of TZ21 has been its style of implementing the project within the government system,” said Felix Mbogella, TZ21’s Deputy Chief of Party in Mtwara. “This has ensured good planning and coordination of our activities but also it has enhanced the capacity of our government counterpart by working hand in hand with the project team.”

The Education Week celebration, which included songs, local dances, poems and a demonstration class, was held at Mkubilu Primary School—the highest-achieving school in the district on last year’s seventh grade, end-of-year exams.

Children who were leaving second and third grades unable to read were sometimes cycled back to repeat the year, adding to overcrowded classrooms and overwhelmed teachers. Others were nudged along to higher grades where, unable to read lessons and exam questions, they are more likely to fail or drop out.

“It is not a secret that before TZ21, the percentage of students who completed grade seven but still could not read was very high,” Ghasia said in her speech.

As part of the celebration, Ghasia observed two classroom teachers in action, including one who had incorporated e-content developed by TZ21 into the lesson.

The econtent supports a phonics-based reading curriculum and, in Mtwara, was delivered alongside solar panels that could overcome many schools’ lack of reliable access to power.

Mtwara is now the only region in the country to have computers in all primary schools.

Ghasia also took in a reading tent set up to demonstrate the new books and materials available to young learners in the district—locally-produced stories that have not just improved access to text but have sparked a culture of reading.

The reading tents are supported in part by school management committees and other members of the community who recognize the importance of reading and want to make it accessible for their children. Some of them have not seen a book since they were in primary school themselves.

The change these schools are part of is noticeable in more ways than test scores.

More than 1,200 educators trained under the program now feel they have the tools to teach reading effectively, even in large classrooms with few resources.

“After attending a sequence of trainings from TZ21, I feel very much empowered in teaching how to read not only in Kiswahili but in any other local language I know,” said Bibie Hassan, a teacher at Masasi Primary School.

Hassan especially credited the training she received on coaching and mentoring—a key part of the program’s approach to make teacher’s new skills and confidence in the classroom both effective and sustainable. Those workshops “assisted us to communicate among ourselves on how we can sharpen our teaching skills further,” she said.

For her part, Ghasia asked schools across the district to contribute to sustainability by making good use of not only the program-provided technology, but the knowledge of how to teach better.

“These innovations are inspiring and we need to make sure that we sustain them,” she said. “The Tanzanian government will ensure that the sustainability of this project is guaranteed, in order to keep improving reading skills in all Mtwara schools.”

TZ21 will host a regional event on April 28, where all seven of Mtwara’s districts will come together to commemorate the work done in the education sector over the past year.

Reporting by Felix Mbogella and Kizitho Mniwako. Photos by Victor Kyando.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

7 ways to make middle school less…middle school

April 7, 2015

6 min read

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7 ways to make middle school less…middle school

By Jennifer Brookland

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Memories that fall between the fun of childhood and the accomplishments of young adulthood are sometimes ones we’d rather not relive. Those middle years are, for many, a complicated and trying time punctuated by awkwardness and anxiety.

Students at this age are in physiological, emotional and cognitive transition. They face new academic and social challenges, and the stakes for both are higher. And this all happens at a time when support from classmates, teachers, schools and parents often drops off.

These middle school years can be more than something we survive—and they have to be: In many countries, increasing numbers of students who drop out of school begin their adult lives lacking in the skills and attitudes necessary to join the workforce, cope with life pressures, and contribute to society.

“People say ‘this too shall pass’ instead of seeing it as the best opportunity to encourage young people,” says Eric Rusten, a Senior Associate with Creative Associates International’s Education for Development Division. “Middle school is a wonderful opportunity for us as educators to help these young people shift their trajectory in more positive ways.”

So here, from Rusten and two other Creative experts who have worked with adolescents in Morocco, Jordan, Brazil, Indonesia and Mozambique, are seven ways to take advantage of this period of transition, and make middle school a time of opportunity and positive growth.

1. Demand more

When 3,344 Jordanian students answered survey questions about how they felt in school, only about half of them said their teachers set high expectations—the same amount who said their teachers cared about them.

But expecting students to be high achievers is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It builds their self-esteem, increases their confidence, improves their performance in school and even increases their motivation.

In Indonesia, Rusten listened to a 15-year-old girl explain that becoming a student support technician for her school’s computer system, with the responsibilities it entailed, actually changed her life.

She was responsible for preparing computers for class, maintaining and repairing them and updating software. She was also asked to manage the maintenance budget and train student technicians for the next year.

“Before, I hated school and was a poor student,” the girl said. “Now, I come early every day and am at the top of my class.”

2. Smile!

When students in Jordan were asked what changes they would bring to their school if they were principal for a day, they said things like: “Make a rule against teachers hitting students”; and “ask the teachers to just talk to students and respect them and to stop yelling and abusing us.”

One 14-year-old girl simply said, “I will ask all the teachers to smile at the students and to call them by their names.”

Making the school environment a friendlier, more nurturing place might not be something teachers inherently view as their job. But it contributes greatly to a more effective learning environment for students and increased confidence that translates into academic and social success. It can also make teachers happier and increase their job satisfaction.

3. Expand the classroom

Learning also takes place through non-academic pursuits. Think of sports teams, drama and debate club, or school-based community service. But many schools are devoid of these opportunities for children.

In Morocco, 21 percent of middle school students interviewed said they do not feel a part of their school.

“We need and want students to be given a major role in school life,” says Abdelkader Ezzaki, who leads Creative’s middle school project in Morocco. Part of that means engaging young people in activities where they can develop responsibility, collaboration, and the psychosocial skills that will serve them in class and out.

And don’t think the social and learning environment of middle school ends outside the gate. Instead, mosques, businesses and other community institutions can play a big role in helping students feel more positively about school.

“It is not only on school or teachers,” says Senior Associate Jeffrey Coupe. “If we mobilize those resources and find an adult or two or three adults who care about each individual child, that goes a long way in terms of reducing risk factors.”

4. Listen up

Middle school students have the most at stake, are most concerned about their futures, and are most unsure. Yet it is teachers and administrators who control resources and time, and do most of the talking and deciding, Rusten points out.

He says adults can only enable young people to be autonomous and purposeful by consulting with them and engaging them in authentic and meaningful ways.

“It’s a really powerful experience to actually listen to young people,” says Rusten, who believes they truly want the guidance and feedback adults can provide. “They actually want to be walked through the thought process and test their ideas out. But you can’t get to that part without first listening.”

Coupe agrees that letting young people take charge of their lives will overturn the way adults view them.

“As you see changes in children and youth, you’ll start to change your world view,” he says. “And I think that’s really a good place to start.”

6. Give in

Rusten is always shocked when teachers ask how to motivate young people.

In his experience, youth are exceptionally motivated—given the right conditions, that is. They want autonomy, they want to master skills and they want to live with purpose. When they can control their own lives, are good at something and do things that matter within an open, safe and respectful environment of inquiry and care, they will be motivated, he says.

The problem, of course, is that adults don’t like ceding control, especially in a school environment where they feel responsible. But by recognizing that they can’t control young people’s lives, adults can act as facilitators.

“Think of young people as assets,” Rusten suggests. “Realize it’s not about us, it’s about them. This is their future, their lives. Our job is to help them shift the trajectory of their lives just a little bit.”

Those who do are sometimes surprised at the positive results.

One astounded coach in Morocco told Rusten, “I knew that these young people were good with us, now I realize that they are so much better without us.”

6. Make learning useful, and personal

At a workshop Rusten helped organize in Mozambique, a 16-year-old girl and orphan was outraged when she heard NGO workers blame poverty for students dropping out. “We didn’t leave school because we were poor,” she declared. “We left because the school doesn’t provide anything we need.”

In Jordan, eight out of 10 middle schoolers reported they spent at least half of their math lessons memorizing formulas.

Children like these who do not gain knowledge and skills that will actually benefit them in their lives can easily become disinterested, or see no value in staying in school.

Making their learning useful and personalized can make the difference in their attitudes and performance, especially since an academic deficit can often lead to a behavioral one according to Coupe.

Easier said than done…. but possible and necessary.

“I don’t think deep seated cultural beliefs are going to come easily, but if you start by developing an ethos of positive behavior and feedback, over time positive change will convince people,” Coupe says.

7. Change from within

When middle school teachers in Morocco resisted a reading across the curriculum approach, Ezzaki had them create the content for it.

Teachers, who had ownership of the new approach, created a more engaging and motivating class environment, and were shown how to help struggling students.

For their part, students become more autonomous in their learning as their reading improved. Not only did they test higher in reading and other subject areas, but they dropped out of school at significantly lower rates as compared to the national average.

The program, called Improving Training for Quality Advancement in National Education, was institutionalized by the Ministry of Education into pre-service and in-service teacher training. Eventually, it was scaled up and funded by the government as Creative’s new RASID program.

“Change does not need to happen from outside,” says Ezzaki. “It can happen from within.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Countering violent extremism on & offline

April 6, 2015

5 min read

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Countering violent extremism on & offline

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]As world leaders gathered in the White House in February to discuss strategies to counter the spread of violent extremism, the world’s attention focused on ISIS with its estimated 20,000 foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq and a sophisticated media operation broadcasting radical messages on social media to supporters and potential recruits.

From ISIS to Pakistan’s Taliban to Nigeria’s Boko Haram, extremist organizations globally are grabbing headlines and radicalizing young recruits.

In this climate, countering violent extremism (CVE) has become a top priority for the international community and particularly for the U.S. government, which reasserted its commitment in a statement coinciding with the White House summit.

“The U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are committed to countering today’s threats, and building capacity and resilience to prevent tomorrow’s challenges,” said the State Department in the Feb. 19 statement. The statement also said the U.S. will advance ongoing and planned efforts, including civilian-led programming, totaling nearly $188 million.

As governments ramp up efforts to counter violent extremism, international development organizations face the challenge of advancing effective and innovative approaches that build community resilience, mitigate the “push” and “pull” factors influencing individuals to join extremist groups and put forward alternative narratives of tolerance, unity and peace to counter extremists’ calls to radicalization on social media.

Tom Wheelock, Senior Vice President at Creative Associates International, says there is opportunity for both “CVE-specific” programming (community-level prevention, intervention, interruption and reintegration programs) and “CVE-relevant” programming (shaping a community’s environment through public policy, social programs, workforce development and more) to reduce grievances and build community resilience to prevent radicalization.

A communications campaign offering an alternative narrative should accompany these efforts, says Wheelock.

At a recent presentation at the U.S. Military Academy, Wheelock explained that these interventions complement host governments’ ongoing counterintelligence, military and diplomatic counterterrorism efforts but cannot be perceived as being linked to police or intelligence-gathering operations. Otherwise, he says, CVE programming loses its credibility within communities.

Lt. Col. Bryan Price, Director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, adds that these efforts are a key part of a comprehensive strategy to counter violent extremism.

“Effective counterterrorism efforts employ all elements of national power. International development actions can in some cases reduce the so-called ‘greed and grievance’ issues that can trigger, facilitate or speed up the radicalization process,” says Lt. Col. Price.

Where the action is

Wheelock says, “Radicalization for any individual is a unique process driven by a mixture of several contributing factors—such as peer influence, kinship ties, socioeconomic grievances or political marginalization.”

Most international donor-funded programs can be characterized as CVE-relevant—helping to build a community’s resilience and mitigate political, social and economic grievances that may push youth into violent extremism.

However, CVE-specific programming is where the action is and the difficulties lie, says Wheelock, especially in identifying youth-at-risk and intervening to prevent them from becoming radicalized. For these types of CVE interventions, he says U.S. government-funded programs should principally support local governments and community groups and acknowledge host government leadership.

These CVE-specific efforts can focus on the prevention and intervention phases by facilitating government-community collaboration; providing advice, training and funding to local partners; and supporting “alternative narrative” communications campaigns.

This should be done discretely, says Wheelock, without the usual requirements for U.S. government branding and marketing so that beneficiaries’ credibility and security are protected.

Investing in prevention

AFG092013338 — Prevention is a key part of countering violent extremism, which often means reaching the most at-risk youth in complex, multiethnic, mutli-sectarian, urban environments.

For programs working in the prevention phase—including boosting community policing or enhancing the capacity of civil society organizations—Wheelock says building trust and gaining the confidence of local governments, partners and community members is critical.

“The first step is gaining entry into a community and figuring out how to do that in a complex, multiethnic, mutli-sectarian, urban environment….Once having established that confidence and entry, then we talk to them about peace, unity and tolerance,” he says.

Interventions at the prevention phase, says Lt. Col. Price, are especially beneficial and help reduce radicalization down the line that could lead to violence.

“The more we can do to prevent members of society from radicalizing and conducting acts of political violence, the fewer plots we will have to foil at the 11th hour,” Lt. Col. Price says. “Policing, intelligence, and the criminal justice tools will always be a part of counterterrorism efforts, but they are not the only ones.”

Countering violent extremism is a long-term process, he notes. It is also multi-faceted, requiring measures to reduce community and individual vulnerabilities to radicalization, while also reaching the most at-risk individuals, using judicial systems to prosecute crimes and rehabilitating ex-radical individuals.

Wheelock maintains that CVE programs seeking to focus on prevention and intervention can benefit from techniques and methodologies used in Crime and Violence Prevention (CVP) programs to determine risk factors, identify youth-at-risk and provide support and counseling to these youth and their families.

In Central America, Creative implements primary and secondary crime and violence prevention activities as well as community policing programs and is looking at how to adapt these methodologies and lessons learned for CVE.

Social media for alternative narratives

Messaging through social and broadcast media must be part of a comprehensive CVE campaign, Wheelock says. This comprises interventions that rebut extremist ideology (a counter-narrative) or offer a more moderate world view (an alternative narrative) supporting themes of peace, tolerance and unity.

Extremist groups are highly proficient in using their own social media to identify and recruit young people. Twitter shut down 2,000 ISIS-linked accounts in early March, but the use of social media by radical groups is wide-reaching and continues to play a role in the radicalization of many youth globally.

President Barack Obama, in a speech at the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism on Feb. 19, said: “We need to do more to help lift up voices of tolerance and peace, especially online.”

The President also said that political, community and religious leaders in the Muslim world have a responsibility and big role to play in pushing back against radical messaging.

The Obama Administration reports it is launching several initiatives to boost its messaging efforts, including a peer-to-peer challenge empowering university students to produce digital content to counters extremists’ messaging online, as well as technology trainings to help social media companies and other stakeholder create content to discredit violent extremists’ online material.

Wheelock says that U.S. CVE programs are able to support local efforts to produce and disseminate messaging that promotes peace, unity and tolerance.

Social media is a particularly potent tool for reaching vulnerable youth, a demographic using social media in greater proportions than other age groups.

By supporting social media campaigns around tolerance, unity and peace and by providing technical assistance to broadcast media disseminating anti-radicalization content, CVE programs have “been able to help build and brand an identity for youth in urban areas that emphasizes community…and use that as a starting point to gain confidence of the community, civil society and the local government,” says Wheelock.

‘While this is not a counter-narrative to violent extremism,” he says. “It is an alternative narrative that also needs to be in place.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]