Countering Extremism

SFCG is focused on programs that counter the incentives to join extremist groups, particularly in prisons and poor neighborhoods. Using sports, leadership training, mass media programming and cooperative projects, SFCG teaches nonviolent ways of finding common ground across entrenched divides.  In areas vulnerable to radical extremism, SFCG draws from its over 20 years experience with radio, TV, and journalism programs to amplify the voices of moderation and tolerance.

Working with Youth in Poverty

In Morocco, SFCG works to protect against extremist recruitment in the poorest neighborhoods and communities by:

• Training youth to serve as mediators, peace builders, and conflict resolution practitioners in the daily conflicts that arise between neighbors, gangs, or with the local authorities.

• Educating social workers and leaders of youth-oriented organizations in nonviolent communication, management of community conflicts, mediation and negotiation. When they model these skills as they work, they magnify impact.

• Building collaboration among stakeholders to increase residents’ self-reliance, employment, microfinance, computer skills, communication and conflict resolution skills.

Working in Prisons

In Indonesia and Morocco, SFCG works in prisons with pertinent agencies to train prison administrators and guards in nonviolent conflict management, while working with prisoners to increase self-esteem and nonviolent life skills.  In addition, for prisoners at high risk of radicalization, SFCG’s focus has two main components: an ideological one, encouraging prisoners to express their religious beliefs non-violently; and a vocational one, promoting self-sufficiency and reducing dependence on terrorist social networks.

Working in Schools

SFCG works in partnership with the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia, Nahdlatul Ulama, to promote pluralism and tolerance in Islamic boarding schools in areas vulnerable to extremism. SFCG’s approach combines debate competitions with training manuals and comic books that teach tolerance, effective dialogue, and mutual understanding.  Starting with a pilot program reaching 25,000 students, SFCG will expand the program to schools throughout Indonesia.

Working with Mass Media

In Pakistan, as well as other areas vulnerable to radical extremism, SFCG uses the press, radio and TV to amplify the voices of moderation and tolerance:

• Common Ground News Service (CGNews) distributes five constructive opinion articles each week in six languages to newspapers and online media for republication. In Pakistan, CGNews articles have been reprinted in English and Urdu over 1,000 times in nearly 100 newspapers and websites, such as Al Qamar, The Frontier Post, Dawn and Daily Aftab.

• Training journalists and talk show hosts to address critical issues through problem-solving, avoiding inflammatory rhetoric and point-scoring.

• The Team, a cricket-based TV and radio soap opera series, tells the fictionalized stories of youth from different political, ethnic and religious groups in Pakistan playing on the same cricket team. The metaphor is simple: if cricket players do not cooperate – whatever their background – they will not score. The scripts are penned by a creative team of Pakistanis who reflect the diversity of their country.