CoHESION

CoHESION is a three year project led by Arq Psychotrauma Expert group (NL), with University College Roosevelt (NL), the Quilliam Foundation (UK), Grundigs Hojskole (DK), Elegast (BE) and Sons and Daughters of the World (DK) as project partners and the London Borough of Newham (UK) as associate partners. It is set against a context of social polarisation, in which there is a strong need for educational methods which emphasise tolerance, inclusion and active citizenship. Its main activities will be fourfold. It will design supporting materials for the Citizenship curriculum for secondary school students, already developed under the successful TERRA II programme ( www.terratoolkit.eu). It will develop a citizenship lesson materials for primary schools based upon mindfulness and inclusion, and supporting materials to accompany it will develope materials and a framework for school based family support programmes for parents who are worried about radicalisation. A network of people who have formerly been members of radical organisations will be established who , along with protocols for their contacts with schools and young people, and that contact will be initiated during the funding period. The overarching objective of our activities will be to contribute to community cohesion through education, providing innoculation against the radical messages of extremist groups, fostering bonds between schools and families and promoting inclusion, tolerance and omniculturalism. Consortium partners have been carefully selected from several years of experience in working together on other European projects relating to radicalisation on the basis of their expertise in this area, their solid network both in the fields of counter narratives and education and their capacity to fulfill their tasks within the project, including dissemination activities. Other participants, mainly schools who will be trained and supported, will initially be selected from within their existing networks, but we confidently anticipate on the basis of past experience that this basis will broaden during the course of our project as a result of a snowball effect. We will reach above 10,000 participants who do not recieve funding as part of this project. The methods and networks which we will establish during this project will be self sustaining and continue to impact beyond the funding period. Our project is designed to make a significant contribution to resilient societies by supporting tolerance and inclusion. In doing so, it will develop and deliver new eductaional methods, benefitting current and future teachers at both primary and secondary school level and fostering closer ties between schools and the families they serve.