CoCoRa - Community Counteracting Radicalisation

The background and rationale of the CoCoRa project and prevention concept is as follows:

All over Europe we see:

• An increased focus on political-religious radicalisation oriented towards Daesh in the wake of the Syria civil war
• An increased preparedness to prevent and counteract young people´s political-religious radicalisation, violent/militant extremism and terrorism
• A variety of prevention and intervention strategies launched to respond to these phenomena throughout Europe
• Most efforts aimed at strengthening the professional resources – frontline workers/practitioners as well as researchers and intelligence services etc.

But despite all these effort:

• We still seem to witness an increasing number of radicalized youngsters, turning their heads and resources towards political-religious movements against Western-democratic societies
• Civil societies and local communities are rarely an integrated part of the prevention strategies.

On this background, the overall aims for the CoCoRa projects are to:

• To contribute to a new local community-based and co-productive prevention strategy against politicial-religious radicalisation and violent extremism among young people in the risk zone for radicalization.

The concrete objectives are:

• To develop a prevention programme focused on the strengthening of young people´s empowerment and devotion to an active fellow citizenship
• To involve local communities as equal partners in developing the prevention programme, utilizing inside knowledge, confidential positions and credibility.
• To train the young participants for an intercultural ambassadorship to engage in dialogue and coproduction with professionals in prevention activities.

Thus, the CoCora project will:

• Empower young people exposed for political-religious radicalization to recognize and define themselves in the concept of an equal and active fellow citizenship
• Strengthen the mutual insight, credibility and trust between local professionals/practitioners and local com-munities in order to qualify approaches and methods in united prevention efforts.
• Incorporate the empowerment and equality approach to the prevention strategy in order to relate the prevention efforts clearly to the perspective of an equal and active citizenship.

Contact details:

Karlsgårdsvej 11
DK-3000 Elsinore
Denmark

Margit Helle Thomsen, Director
Email: mht@mhtconsult.dk 
Tel: 0045 51204858