The Hunger Project-Bangladesh (THP-Bangladesh) is implementing a project to counter the growing radicalization and violent extremism in Bangladesh through a community-led approach which addresses the drivers of radicalization and violence. Project Title: Building Resilience Against Violent Extremism (BRAVE)
Funded By: Federal Foreign Office funds, German Embassy
Aim: Building community resilience
to address the growing radicalization and extremism in Bangladesh. Empower a group of seniors as mentors and youth and women as activists with skills, knowledge and tools to address issues around extremism.
2. Learning sharing with relevant stakeholders. Short Description of the Project: The Hunger Project-Bangladesh (THP-BD) proposes to counter the growing radicalization and violent extremism in Bangladesh through a community-led approach which addresses the drivers of radicalization and violence. It will be a three-year project, carried out in 24 Unions and two Municipalities of three Upazilas under Bagerhat District of southern Bangladesh. The proposed project will empower political, social and religious leaders, youth, women, media and other opinion leaders in the society as champions of peace, non-violence and peaceful co-existence. It will draw upon THP-BD’s experienced volunteers and their networks that already work in some of the proposed Unions. THP-BD has been carrying out community mobilization in those areas by formulating a “SDG Union Strategy” – a strategy designed to mobilize clusters of villages across Bangladesh to help achieve the SDGs. The project will bridge two generations by creating a group of mentors from political, religious and social leaders, and at the same time creating a group of PVE activists from youths and women. The youths and women will be the main force for creating awareness and mobilizing the community with support from the mentors. They will carry out campaigns designed to address identity-based prejudice as a source of hate speech and hate crimes and encourage communities to ensure a prejudice-free childhood. Series of meetings, interfaith dialogues, campaigns and other forms of engagement will enrich and empower a wide range of stakeholders. A diversity festival at the end of the project will display the achievements and convey that diversity should not be feared but embraced and celebrated. In addition to robust monitoring of project activities and results, an external evaluation will be done at the end of the project to document lessons learned from the project, which will help us develop a deeper understanding of the project outcomes. The evaluation report will be disseminated to relevant stakeholders. Context: The project will be implemented in three upazilas of Bagerhat District. These upazilas are Bagerhat Sadar, Fakirhat and Mongla. All 24 Unions and two Municipalities of these upazilas will be covered under this project. Youths, both male and female, and political, faith and CSO leaders will be the direct beneficiaries of the project. Bagerhat is one of the southern districts of Bangladesh, located on the bank of Bay of Bengal and world’s largest mangrove forest, Sundarban. Along with the Muslims, it has a significant number of Hindu population and a rich history of interfaith collaboration and peaceful coexistence. However, the heightened level of religious intolerance experienced throughout the country in recent years has influenced Bagerhat and its youths. There were incidents of attacks on minorities during and after 2014 election and it continues sporadically, particularly during elections, both national and local. Level of intolerance has reached such a height that even an innocent statement that ‘there is no heaven’ brought severe consequences for a science teacher of a local school. This kind of intolerance was further encouraged when the teachers, not the attackers, were sent to jail for insulting Islam (https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/2-bagerhat-hindu-teachers-jailed-insulting-islam-1217152). Extremists and reactionary forces usually enjoy freedom to spread hate and intolerance to other identities, countering of which remains a high-risk business in Bangladesh. This creates a permissive environment for radicalizing the society, contributing to heightened prejudice and intolerance. Recognizing the public psyche, caused by growing religiosity in the society, the government remained more or less silent during the series of extremist attacks and killings of bloggers, minorities and expats until the Holy Artisan carnage which took place in 2015. Though the Bangladesh government has demonstrated significant success in neutralizing the militant groups by using force after the Holy Artisan killings, it at the same time appeased the Islamic reactionary forces by adopting more and more reactionary agendas. This has increased the vulnerability of Bangladeshi society to the extremist narratives, particularly the youths and women. As a result, although the violence by the extremist has significantly declined in Bangladesh, the radicalization, on the other hand, even by the admission of the security forces of Bangladesh, is on the rise in the country. This creates an alarming prospect for the future. Focusing on the youth, understanding their vulnerabilities, and developing their resilience to radicalization and extremism are the primary goals of the proposed project. We will, at the same time, work with the seniors to bridge the gap between the two generations. Such work is critically important for building a pluralistic, inclusive and tolerant future generation in our country. Target Group: The total population of the 26 communities will be benefited either directly or indirectly. The major target group of this project are youth and women who appeared to be the most vulnerable from radicalization. In fact, extremists all over the world have been successfully exploiting their vulnerabilities and using them as pawns to carryout carnages to advance their brutal cause. Building resilience among the youths and women are, therefore, now urgently needed to effectively deal with radicalization and violent extremism in Bangladesh. The project has other target groups, namely the political and faith leaders who are normally the gatekeepers of their communities. These leaders will be engaged to eliminate the risk of radicalization and create an enabling environment to promote the leadership of the youth and women groups. Gender aspects will play a vital role in this project. Women usually take the brunt of extremism and violence, whether as a victim or perpetrator. In combating extremism, women also have the opportunity to facilitate and ensure a prejudice-free childhood for their offspring. Children grown up with identity-based prejudices are more vulnerable to extremist narratives. Women have a critical role to play in addressing this issue. This project will directly contribute to the implementation of UN Resolution 1325 and the follow up resolutions and initiatives as women are one of the key actors of this project for preventing extremism and violence. Key Actors: As already mentioned, youth and women will be the key actors here. Both youth and women have their unique vulnerabilities from radicalization and at the same time they are the critical part of the solution. Political and faith leaders are the other important stakeholders of the proposed project. Their hold and authority in the local power structure can create the enabling environment for resisting the menace of radicalization and violent extremism in their communities. This project will empower the leaders as mentors to the youth and women groups and make them accountable for performing that role. Local administration and local government bodies will also have roles to play as they hold enormous legal authority for enforcing law and order and at the same time offering critically important services.
