Young Leaders Programme

The Young Leaders Programme is a counter radicalisation programme which is the 'breakout initiative' of the Active Change Foundation. It 'aims to provide the tools and guidance that young people need to become leaders' and 'lead them away from the pulls of violence, injustice, radicalization and extremism.' Some parts of the Programme have been run with Shared Outcomes a programme of the Institute for Statecraft.

The programe

The ACF refers to the programme as 'building... peer-mentors and placing them back in their neighbourhoods', in order to make 'it much harder for crime and extremism to infiltrate.' The YLP is said to be 'open to applicants from years 11 and 12, regardless of their background, faith or ethnicity, who face real challenges and difficulties in their community'.

The YLP programme

involves a number of workshops, with themes ranging from identifying extremist narratives and safeguarding to confidence building and public speaking skills. Community events take place during the programme, where Young Leaders and members of the community are able to openly debate about interesting topics, expressing their views and opinions in a controlled way. The events adopt a question time style panel, and gives young people the experience they need to answer questions quickly and effectively, without preparation. Near the conclusion of the programme, a residential takes place, where the Young Leaders take part in a concentrated period of workshops and events at a University venue.

This allows the Young Leaders to experience an environment outside of their local community, and previous venues include places such as the University of East Anglia. Throughout the course of the programme, the Young Leaders will be able to work on their personal cause, and at the conclusion, the personal causes will be presented and implemented by the Young Leaders. Thanks to our partnership with Twitter, one Young Leader from each programme will actually have the opportunity to win a Twitter supported social media campaign to further aid the delivery of their personal cause. This is a huge opportunity to launch an effective, far-reaching and long lasting campaign that will really make a difference. Our Partnerships with Twitter, Metropolitan Police, Home Office and the Institute for Statecraft allow these young people to experience a truly ground-breaking and empowering programme.

Redbridge Council is engaged in the Programme noting that in 2014 that 'more than 30 young people' took part providing 'young people with the skills and training they will need to challenge extremism as well as supporting and positively influencing other young people who become vulnerable to radicalisation.'

This year the project had almost 200 applications from Redbridge pupils and worked with 35 young people from 10 secondary schools. All of the young people attended a special closing ceremony, to mark the end of the project, on Friday 4 April at Redbridge Town Hall, Ilford. The ceremony was attended by former Security Minister Baroness Pauline Jones, who made a speech to the young leaders about inspiring the future.

The council noted that the programme is funded by the Home Office, suggesting that at least someHome Office funding to Redbridge Council for Prevent work is ending up with the Active Change Foundation which runs the programme.

Resources

• Active Change Foundation Young Leaders Programme
• Redbridge Council Young Leaders work to help prevent extremism