‘Violence Prevention Network’ & ‘Cultures Interactive’: EU Good-Practice Research on Deradicalisation Work in Prison and Community and the Factor of Culture
Author(s):
In this paper I will talk about two Federal Model Projects of exemplary work in de-radicalisation carried through by two NGOs in Berlin – who are at the forefront of such a society conscious approach. One, Cultures Interactive (CI), is engaged in communities and schools. Its target group is at-risk adolescents from disadvantaged communities, who are likely to get entangled into extremism, youth delinquency and violence. As its name already indicates, Cultures Interactive works with youth-cultures as HipHop, Techno, Gothic etc. But most interesting is, how this is combined with particular pedagogic exercises. The other NGO, Violence Prevention Network(VPN), works in prisons and delivers a special group-dynamic training program for young offenders convicted of hate crime, which also includes a systematic approach to civic education. In the second section of this paper I will refer to two EU research projects, which study these NGOs’ quite successful work. The ‘good-practice’ research aims to find out more about just what it is that makes this work so effectual. One project – “Towards Preventing Violent Radicalisation”(TPVR) – is driven by the London Probation Trust and in Germany focuses on VPN, the second –“Literary and Media Interaction as Means of Understanding and Preventing Adolescent Violence and Extremism” (LIPAV) – is commissioned by the EU’s Research Directorate (in the section of psychology/culture research) and conducted by Cultures Interactive. These results will then enable us (1) to draw conclusions as to the criteria for good-practice, inducing pro-social change with the participants and (2) formulate the impact factors of and practice-guidelines for successful de-radicalisation work.

