mentoring, mental health benefits and increased the community connections of participants (Centre for Multicultural Youth 2014). Also focusing on sport, theAFL’s BACHAR HOULI ISLAMIC PROGRAM highlights sport as a route to embrace diversity and build social cohesion, offering Muslim boys and young men the opportunity to learn to play football in a safe and fun environment (Australian Football League 2016). Program pillars promoting engagement, participation and community leadership include the Bachar Houli Cup, the Bachar Houli Academy, individual mentoring and the AFL Ramadan dinners. Football United’s WESTERN SYDNEY – YOUTH UNITED
saw participants assist with weekly football programs in their communities and receive training to develop and deliver positive messages through their role as coaches and mentors, via social media. By representing Football United in their communities and beyond, participating youth offered positive influences for the next generation of children from similar cultural backgrounds (Attorney-General’s Department 2013a).
ENGAGE, CHALLENGE, GROW was a suite of projects run by the Lebanese Muslim Association (2016) in Sydney that helped promote mutual respect, fairness, inclusion and a sense of belonging. These projects addressed some of the causes of problems facing the Australian Muslim community, such as cultural, racial and religious intolerance. A range of youth leadership initiatives including the Engage stream, Hedayah Leadership Program, Positive Intellect Program and Think Again, provided skills, knowledge and resilience to young Sydney Muslims in Sydney to stay involved with their communities, act as positive role models, address social cohesion issues and build resilience amongst community youth.
DIFFERENT PEOPLE, DIFFERENT VOICES used a board game, My Australia Our Australia, to address identity issues, create sense of belonging and eliminate cultural isolation. An initiative of Sydney’s Burwood Council in Sydney focused primarily on schools in Sydney’s West, this educational tool fostered community engagement and improved youth coping and response mechanisms through peer-to-peer learning. It also provided training to develop leadership and peer facilitation skills in delivering the board game in high schools (Attorney-General’s Department 2013b).
5.3 Community-Based
Lessons learned from the mental health and education fields suggest there needs to be a move beyond a criminal justice approach to CVE to a multidisciplinary approach promoting community safety. This observation translates into several practical outcomes, including the need to empower communities to define for themselves priority concerns regarding targeted violence, and to generate solutions that will build healthy and resilient communities; promote leadership and ownership of initiatives by community-based agencies and individuals, and build on individual, family, and community resilience and strengths (Weine et al., 2015).
The Safe Spaces initiative in the USA is a community-based approach by the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s (MPAC). According to Beutel (2015), ‘MPAC’s strategy is to treat violent extremism as a public health matter, as do efforts to prevent other forms of targeted violence. Safe Spaces is based on three pillars: prevention, intervention and reporting. Prevention focuses on nipping problems in the bud by building healthy communities. Radicalisation studies note that radicalisation occurs outside of mosques either online or in small groups at peoples’ homes, without the presence of some sort of authoritative mentor. Consistent with its faith- based perspective, Safe Spaces advocates making the mosque and other community institutions into centres of social and spiritual comfort where people can talk about issues that affect their daily lives without fear of social stigma. Intervention involves bring together a multidisciplinary team of experts in mental health, social services, religious affairs, and law to embody a ‘whole community’ approach to addressing individuals at-risk of engaging in violence. Should prevention or intervention efforts fail, Safe Spaces recommends notifying law enforcement but only as a last resort after other approaches have been ruled out. Ultimately, the goals are to protect individual community members from the recruitment tactics of violent groups, safeguard the liberties of larger communities by providing powerful alternatives to surveillance and arrest, and continue to contribute to the nation’s safety and security by reducing the risk and threat of terrorist violence’ (Beutel 2015).
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An emerging practice in several European communities is the development of helplines for concerned family members, friends, and community members. Helplines are focused on providing support and guidance to the caller, for instance, on how to deal with a potentially radicalising family member (RAN, 2015).
The Netherlands’ SMN Helpline is a community- based initiative by the Alliance of Moroccan Dutch. This community stresses the importance of developing its own strategies to build resilience against radicalisation and broaden awareness within the community. Its approach includes training community leaders, developing information campaigns and running information sessions for parents and community members to recognise early signs of radicalisation and how to receive assistance and support. Community members feel more comfortable contacting a community-based organisation, and the program helps meet specific community needs, offering a sense of empowerment, being part of the solution and being proactive citizens (European Commission: Migration and Home Affairs 2016). Australian community-based programs include the Community Awareness Training Program, Salam Alaykum Darebin’s Muslims Reaching Out, the National Imams Consultative Forum and National Community Hubs Program. Each share common goals but use different methods and approaches to enhance awareness, communication and social cohesion in the community. The Australian Multicultural Foundation (AMF)’s Community Awareness Training Manual – Building Resilience in the Communityis based on preventative strategies that encourage and empower individuals and groups at the grassroots level to create a more informed, proactive and resilient community that will have the information, resources and practical strategies to reduce the threat of violent extremism and seek help where necessary. The model is not specific to any particular national, political, religious or ideological group and applies regardless of the ideology or motivation for radicalisation. Delivered nationally as train the trainer and information sessions, the program’s success is based largely on its community driven focus. Engaging with communities as equal and integral partners in addressing violent extremism
creates an environment of trust and confidence, with participants reporting increased knowledge and skills, empowerment and willingness to engage in activities to counter violent extremism. The program’s inclusive language and prevention strategies on a range of anti-social behaviours that may also lead to violent extremism strengthen community confidence that this is not a CVE program aimed at building intelligence databases (Australian Multicultural Foundation 2015).
Salam Alaykum Darebin’s Muslims Reaching Out sought to foster community participation, community cohesion, and engagement between Darebin’s Muslim community and the broader community. It enabled members of Darebin’s Muslim communities, including youth, to participate in a range of activities which provided the community with an avenue for the non- violent expression of views and the dispelling of myths through ongoing dialogue, education, and collaboration between different individuals and groups from Muslim and non-Muslim communities in Darebin (Attorney-General’s Department 2013c). The National Imams
Consultative Forum is an initiative of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies (NCEIS) in partnership with the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC). The NICF is made up of over 20 imams from every State and Territory of Australia, representing a cross-section of Australian Muslim schools of thought. It is the first group of its kind to be formed in Australia. The Forum empowers Imams, academics, policymakers and government to work together in generating and disseminating awareness, information action on community safety, radicalisation and violent extremism; sharing experiences and good practice, and discussing advice on dealing with certain issues in their communities (National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies 2016). The National Community Hubs Program comprises 57 Hubs in Victoria, Queensland and NSW that implement coordinated and collaborative activities targeting people of all ages to break down barriers between services and people. The Hubs work with migrant/refugee women and pre-school children, bringing local information and services spanning education, health, community and settlement into familiar and friendly places that are part of everyday life, such as schools and community centres.