Baramulla, 25-02-2021: Members of “Save Youth Save Future” organised the latest event of series of full-day trainings as part of the project “Free 4 Youth: Fighting radicalization to enhance e-strategy for a youth-comprehensive approach towards on-line terrorism”.
The trainings were hosted in shirwani Hall Baramullah and were attended by 101 participants. They consisted of three main sessions: Workshop on visuals on social media; Seminar on ‘Expressing discontent and anger in a non-violent manner’ and Real case roundtable.
During the first session, participants had to select several samples among hundreds of photos with quotations printed out from various social media channels. After looking carefully at the images and the quotations, participants were encouraged to analyze them and consider their emotional and interpretive properties. The purpose of the workshop was to provide participants with a few basic tools for deconstructing images and see how different participants respond differently to the same images given their diverse religious, socio-cultural and economic backgrounds. The ultimate aim of the session was to give the audience platform to speak out and discuss different social issues and hot topics.
The second session focused on the subject of expressing discontent and anger in a non-violent manner. Thus, during the seminar, participants were encouraged to articulate their negative emotions in more productive and legal ways, which could be redirected to benefit the local community. The session further aimed at showing participants that having an embedded anger and frustration could make them vulnerable target for terrorist recruitment, which would in turn increase counter-terrorism measures and further fuel the destructive cycle of violence. The trainer gave examples of Mahatma Gandhi in order to explain the concept of Non-Violence. His speech was aimed at uplifting the non-violent movement and help locals realize the negative impact of violence and terrorism.
In the final roundtable, around 30 former stone pelters who have been earlier imprisoned took part, explaining the audience how violence is not the solution as it does not lead to any change. In addition, some former over ground workers (OGWs) for terrorist groups further explained how they themselves have decided to desist and no longer engage with extremist operations as it has not brought anything positive to them. All of them thanked the mentors and people who have helped them de-radicalize and subsequently inspired lots of youngsters in the audience.
At the end of the event, SYSF thanked everyone for attending.