Youth Engagement and Empowerment Programme

The Youth Engagement and Empowerment Programme aims to empower and enable young people to contribute meaningfully towards the United Nation’s global, regional efforts, to prevent and counter violent extremism (PCVE), while adding value to international efforts to strengthen the resilience of youth to fight violent extremism and terrorism. It reinforces youth-focused PCVE-efforts across the UN system and fosters partnerships with civil society organizations in this regard. The Programme is a framework to horizontally scale up initiatives that support and promote the positive role young people play in PCVE-efforts and connects stakeholders at all levels to improve coherence and cooperation in the fight against terrorism and deliver as ‘One UN’.                                        

The UNOCT/UNCCT Youth Engagement and Empowerment Programme (YEEP) captures and consolidates current youth-focused PCVE-efforts, as well as provide a solid framework within which capacity-building support for youth can be offered to Member States and young people on a strategic and sustained basis to prevent and counter violent extremism and terrorism.

The YEEP offers a comprehensive online training course that consists of ten basic modules that can be tailored to different contexts. The programme can also combine and leverage a diverse set of expertise, including in areas such as strategic communications and human rights. The standard training course includes the following modules:

1.  Introduction: In this section participants familiarize themselves with the programme, the programme team and one another. We explore the COVID-19 pandemics impact on their communities and themselves.  
   
   
2. Violent extremism: Here participants explore the topic matter and reflect on their own situation and experiences.  
   
   
3. Youth: We explore the role of youth in PCVE and learn about the UN Security Resolution 2250.
   
   
4. Gender: The crucial and diverse roles of women and men are explored, as well as the implication of gender stereotypes on workshop dynamics. 
   
   
5. Facilitation: This section provides skills to handle difficult conversations.
   
   
6. Teamwork: The pair of facilitators start preparing for their implementation of a local workshop.
   
   
7. Building your workshop: The facilitators build their own workshop with support from their peers and the programme team. 
   
   
8. Implementing your workshop: As part of the implementation the facilitators learn and apply a simple baseline study, pre- and post-surveys tools to monitor performance.
   
   
9. Writing your report: The findings of the workshop are documented and submitted.

The training course combines self-paced reading, live webinars, exercises, training videos, and ongoing coaching and mentoring from UNCCT Youth Engagement Specialists. The course aims to prepare the facilitators, to organize and lead their own workshops. Depending on context, internet connectivity, motivation of facilitators etc., the course can be completed in as little as two weeks and up to two months.