Project

  • Project
//OUR DONORS
//OUR PROJECT

PREVENTION OF VIOLENT EXTREMISM

Context 

Various forms of extremist violence are a challenge across the region of the Western Balkans. Extremist violence is here understood to include racially/ethnically motivated violence and violence inspired by political beliefs including right-wing and nationalistic ideas or religious beliefs. Some of these forms also manifest themselves in violence against authorities, gender-based violence, and violence against the LGBTQi community. Extremist violence cannot be tackled effectively by individual actors or parallel actions alone. Therefore, ATRC and its partners in Albania and North Macedonia work to strengthen the multi-stakeholder approach at the local and regional level to more effectively build resilience against the drivers of violent extremism. 

Overview 

The Advocacy Training and Resource Center (ATRC) and its partners Counselling Line for Women and Girls (CLWG) in Albania and Pleiades Organization in North Macedonia encourage a multistakeholder approach to prevent youth violence and build resilience, in particular in the context of the Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE). This project is supported by the Regional grant of the “SMART Balkans – Civil Society for Shared Society in the Western Balkans” regional project implemented by Centar za promociju civilnog društva (CPCD), Center for Research and Policy Making (CRPM) and Institute for Democracy and Mediation (IDM) and financially supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (NMFA). It will be implemented by June 2025.  

 

 

The project’s key beneficiary groups are state and non-state actors in Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia, including:

1. Local government institutions such as municipal staff, multidisciplinary teams or equivalent mechanisms, and frontline workers;
2. Non-state actors working in this thematic including CSOs, families, and youth mechanisms.

The final beneficiaries are youth and families vulnerable to extremist violence.

The project has four key objectives:

1. Local state and non-state PVE actors have improved capacities to use a local multistakeholder approach to plan, implement and evaluate initiatives on extremist violence prevention and building resilient youth and communities; 
2. Youth centers have improved capacities to plan, implement and evaluate initiatives on preventing violence against and among youth, including PVE; 
3. State and non-state PVE actors have established a regional communication channel and have exchanged good practices and lessons learned at a regional level; 
4. More information is available on the capacities, implementation and evaluation of work of different state and non-state PVE actors. 

//IMPACT

International

Increased sharing of information, good practices, and challenges among key PVE actors across Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia.

National

Strengthened network of state and non-state PVE actors to share information, challenges, and good practices.

Municipality

Strengthened network of state and non-state PVE actors to coordinate and work together on PVE activities.

Community

Increased capacity of youth mechanisms to tackle the drivers of PVE among youth in their community.

// ATRC's Added Value
  • ATRC focuses on building capacity of its beneficiaries, including CSOs, government institutions, and individuals, in order to foster their agency in turn improving sustainability of their role in P/VE and R&R
  • All project design and implementation are done in close coordination with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and aligned with Kosovo’s National Strategy on PCVE and R&R.
  • Activities are implemented by local partners, who are trusted in the community and have a thorough understanding of local needs and opportunities.
  • ATRC and its consortium members are closely connected to several networks of P/CVE and R&R practitioners, where lessons learned, and good practices are exchanged in order to build towards better programming.
// KEY ACTIVITIES
  • Support six multistakeholder groups at the local level in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia to develop a 1-year strategic plan on extremist violent prevention and building resilient youth and communities through workshops. 
  • Support the above multistakeholder groups to plan, implement and evaluate initiatives on preventing violent extremism and building resilient youth and resilience through workshops and on-the-job support. 
  • Support nine youth centers to develop a 1-year strategic plan for the functioning of their center and engagement with other local state and non-state actors. 
  • Support the above youth centers to plan, implement and evaluate initiatives through workshops and on-the-job support. 
  • Provide thematic workshops on the topic of youth violence prevention and prevention of violent extremism to nine youth centers to increase their knowledge and capacity to support prevention and resilience building. 
  • Organize regional exchanges between youth mechanisms across Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia to share good practices and organize regional initiatives. 
  • Organize town hall meetings in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia bringing together state and non-state actors in the PVE field to discuss challenges of the multi-stakeholder approach. 
  • Organize regional exchanges between state and non-state actors across Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia to exchange good practices. 
  • Develop country-focused research pieces with six case studies covering Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia on the capacities, planning, implementation and evaluation of extremist violence prevention initiatives and the multi-stakeholder approach. 
  • Develop a regional comparative research piece to reflect on the findings of the six case studies and provide recommendations at the state and non-state level to improve extremist violence prevention initiatives and the multistakeholder approach 
//OUR PARTNERS

“bringing out the advocate in everyone”

  • Str. Sejdi Kryeziu, no. 26, Prishtine
  • +383 38 739 739

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