RETHINK

The general objective of the project is to prevent vulnerable audiences from starting a process of radicalisation by offering them resilience and critical thinking mechanisms, as well as convince those already engaged within a process of radicalisation to abandon it or dissuade them from going further by providing an alternative narrative that deconstructs extremist rhetoric, in order to change violent behaviour.

This will be achieved through 7 social media campaigns, 3 of which targeting audiences vulnerable to Islamist extremism:

• Community Heroes: aims to provide resilience mechanisms, such as sense of community belonging or identity to vulnerable young people (aged 12-16) from Muslim communities through 3 animated short videos;
• Narratives of Global Islam: to empower Muslim communities through specific features of Islam, such as fundamental rights based on testimonies from Muslim leaders or activists (5 short videos);
• The True Face of Extremism: To present the reality of violent extremism based on former extremists, their families and friends, in order to deconstruct idealistic views (3 short videos).

Furthermore, 2 campaigns will target audiences vulnerable to far-right extremism:

• Conspiracy theories – from satire to danger: to demystify social myths and conspiracy theories propagated by far-right extremism through a factual and humorous tone (5 videos);
• What it’s like to be part of a far-right violent group: to share real narratives that identify the risks associated with being a former far-right violent extremist based on real experiences (3 short videos).

Lastly, 2 campaigns will be produced that target the common citizen, generally vulnerable to polarisation, misinformation and extremism:

• Critical thinking tools: to teach how to critically analyse information by recognizing assumptions or implications, especially as concerns information disseminated by both traditional and social media (4 short videos);
• Peer2peer communication: a call-to-action against extremism: to engage and reach local communities and call them to action against violent extremism (4 short videos).

Type and number of persons benefiting from the project: Target audiences will be reached through a total of 2 175 000 visualisations, 30 330 comments and 25 000 likes located in Portugal, Italy France, Sweden Romania or Hungary.

The campaigns’ application, monitoring and evaluation will be performed by: Lusófona University, CESIE – Centro studi e iniziative europeo, CAPRI – Centre d’action et de prevention contre la radicalisation des individus, Uppsala University, PATRIR – Peace Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania, and SVJ – Subjective Values Foundation.

All the campaigns will be applied focusing on a specific target audience and, in addition to this, 1350 persons will be reached by offline actions, in order to boost the campaigns.