Case Study

Title
Designing Evidence-Based, Inclusive, and Sustainable Capacity Building Activities for P/CVE

Association Tétouani de Iniciativas Laborales (ATIL) was created in 1993 and has since implemented over 50 initiatives that promote child protection, basic education, training, and socio-professional integration to prevent the social exclusion of youth. ATIL operates primarily in the city of Tétouan, Morocco, and collaborates with numerous civil society organizations (CSOs), international organizations, local public institutions, and government entities.

Since CSOs in Morocco often lack access to resources to conduct P/CVE-focused activities, ATIL decided to provide local organizations with a tool that will help them develop and integrate P/CVE activities into their existing work. Under USAID’s Countering Violent Extremism in the Middle East and North Africa (CoVE-MENA) project, ATIL received technical assistance from FHI 360 to refine and test an existing toolkit to help other CSOs in designing and implementing P/CVE-aware socio-cultural activities.

ATIL’s experience working with marginalized and vulnerable youth highlighted the importance of engaging trusted stakeholders – such as schools and local associations – to help ensure buy-in from local communities and improve the reach and impact of its activities. In addition, ATIL wanted to ensure that the toolkit was customized for local communities where there are highly conservative gender norms and where VE is still a very sensitive topic. Accordingly, ATIL hired a local expert to facilitate a participatory process to refine the toolkit. This process included:

1
Details

Focus group discussions with six different local CSO representatives to help assess local capacities and identify CSO needs in terms of P/CVE technical assistance and capacity building

2
Details

A Training of Trainers workshop for nine ATIL staff led by a technical expert on the design and implementation of awareness raising socio-cultural activities aimed at preventing violent extremism

3
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The development of a toolkit for CSOs on how to design and implement socio-cultural activities that incorporate P/CVE approaches, which was tested through a final training workshop led by ATIL trainers for 22 professionals from local CSOs and other education stakeholders and partners

ATIL also sought to engage multiple stakeholders at every stage of the project by:

  • Developing and implementing a methodology based on the toolkit to train local stakeholders to adapt and incorporate P/CVE activities into their social programs implemented in public educational facilities (public libraries, cultural centers, and schools)
  • Including stakeholder engagement strategies to address contextual risks and gender and social inclusion considerations; and developing a dissemination and knowledge-sharing plan to test the adaptability of the methodology in other contexts

ATIL designed their activities to ensure sustainability beyond the project’s period of performance by:

  • Proactively assessing capacity and focusing on building the technical capacity of CSOs to ensure work can continue after the initial funding ends
  • Improving the capacity of ATIL’s staff to train other practitioners and CSO staff on how to use the toolkit to design and implement social and cultural activities that incorporate P/CVE
  • “Layering and sequencing” their program by designing follow-up activities with (CoVE-MENA and other stakeholders) that build on and continue to advance the impacts of the initial short-term activity

Based on the design of the activity centered on the toolkit for CSO capacity building, ATIL planned and implemented at least three follow-up activities:

  • In partnership with the municipality of Tétouan, ATIL launched a training program for CSOs in the Tétouan region to strengthen their technical capacities in social and cultural programming. ATIL used the toolkit as a reference document and trained participants on how to use it, so they can design and implement activities in the public facilities where they operate.
  • In collaboration with a program funded by the Spanish Cooperation Agency (AECID), ATIL, and the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training in Tétouan launched a P/CVE project for public education professionals in schools and other public educational institutions. They developed a participatory action-planning activity to design and implement P/CVE outreach, awareness-raising and socio-cultural activities that contribute to P/CVE in schools.
  • ATIL implemented a five-month activity under the CoVE-MENA grant program to prevent the radicalization of youth. The activity included a multi-stakeholder study day about VE in the Tangier-Tétouan-Al Hoceima region and a series of two Trainings of Trainers (ToTs) for CoVE-MENA partner CSOs in Algeria and Tunisia to share and test the adaptability of ATIL’s P/CVE methodology.