Leaving the past behind: Building resilience to violent extremism through support and education

“Leaving the past behind: Building resilience to violent extremism through support and education” is a three year intervention targeting returnees from confict zones, aiming their successful rehabilitation and reintegration in Albania.

The program is funded by GCERF and implemented by the Counseling Line for Women and Girls, which leads a national consortium of NGOs in cooperation with IRCA, GADC, Helsinki Committee, and IAS.

Overall objective: The objective of the programme is to change violent extremist views and behaviours of returning foreign terrorist fighters and their families, through disengagement and deradicalization, while providing a comprehensive support structure to enable reintegration into society and building of alternative narratives.

The target groups:

• Men, women and children who have returned from Syria and Iraq.
• Family members of RFTFs.

The programme targets the following municipalities: Cerrik, Bulqize, Librazhd, Elbasan, Pogradec, Tirane, Vlore and Shkoder. These municipalities were selected because: 1) most RFTFs are concentrated in these municipalities and 2) studies have shown a higher level of religious tensions where work on de-radicalization has been primarily focused by different actors.