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Communities and neighbourhoods

Major increase in work to tackle violent extremism

Published	31 October 2007

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears today announced a major acceleration in Government work to support communities to confront and isolate violent extremism.

In her first major speech on tackling violent extremism Hazel Blears addressed 500 key opinion formers - from local government, police, academia and the third sector - and set-out the challenge we face, how it is evolving and how it can be tackled.

She noted that extremists' messages are gaining most traction among young men (overwhelmingly between 16 and 35 year olds) - with teenagers making up a significant proportion of the small minority that are drawn into extremism.

Extremists' operating methods and use of technology are becoming ever more sophisticated. They are exploiting ungoverned spaces such as the Internet, bookshops, gyms and cafes and using new media to put across slick and seductive messages. The Government's strategy will gear up and adapt to the evolving nature of the challenge.

Tackling violent extremism must be a shared endeavour where central and local government, police, voluntary organisations and communities themselves need to be bolder in tackling this issue. People must be equipped with the skills and strength to withstand the messages of extremists preaching division and hatred. 

Hazel Blears announced that the Department will invest £70million in stepping up work to build resilience to violent extremism. 
 
The Department will invest around £25million in national schemes to support communities directly including:

• Equiping faith leaders with the skills and understanding required to lead communities, building their capacity to engage with young people on the challenges they face, including extremism. For example, ensuring imams can communicate more effectively with young people;
• Support communities to broaden the provision of citizenship education in mosque schools, equipping young people themselves with the understanding and arguments to reject extremists' messages;
• Developing new minimum standards for public institutions (e.g. prisons, universities) engaging imams working with young or vulnerable people;
• Supporting the Charity Commission's work to improve governance standards in faith institutions, including mosques;
• Increase the provision of leadership training available to Muslim communities, particularly women and young people.

In addition there will be a step-change in the support available to local authorities with their community partners. £45m will be available over the next three years - doubling existing funding levels by 08/09 and tripling them by 10/11. This will enable a broadening and deepening of work already underway across 70 local authority areas.

Hazel Blears set out her priorities for this going forward. These include:

• a greater focus on teenagers and young people building their resilience to extremists' messages and giving them the strength and skills to face down the voices of division in later life;
• more projects that reach out to young people (16-35 year olds) - particularly the disaffected - such as mentoring or peer-support programmes;
• Internet based projects to provide platforms for engaging young Muslims and fostering tolerance and understanding;
• more work to support and empower grassroots communities to play a leading role. This includes a major expansion in the work with Muslim women and young people, building their capacity to shape their communities and to engage with disaffected groups. 

A lot of work is already being done by the Muslim communities in these areas and Government will focus on supporting and accelerating that work.

Hazel Blears said:

"Given the scale and enduring nature of the threat we face, tough security measures are vital. But they cannot be the whole solution.  We have to overcome this challenge by giving communities the strength and skills to face down a false and perverted ideology. This struggle will be with us for years to come, and we must do more to support the next generation in winning it. That is why we will be putting work with young people and Muslim women centre-stage, giving the silent majority a voice."

Background

We will support communities delivering projects in a number of areas.  This will be a community led approach building on excellent work already underway.

Children and young people

We need to ensure that children and young people - particularly in their formative years - are equipped with the skills and confidence to reject extremist messages. Mainstream schools and mosque schools have a key role to play in supporting this.

Many mosque schools - like those in Bradford - are working to make citizenship education a key pillar of their curriculum. Citizenship teaching combined with a greater understanding of the faith are a key aspect of ensuring young Muslims are resilient to extremist messages.

Role models/mentors 

A lack of inspirational role models can be a factor in young people becoming vulnerable to extremist messages. That's why we will support more mentoring projects that reach out to those that are vulnerable and disaffected using successful local business leaders, religious and youth leaders, and academics.

Funding will be used to increase work with voluntary groups already plugged into some of the hardest to reach Muslim youth who are also the most susceptible to radicalisation. That includes working with, for example, excluded children who may be vulnerable to extremists.

Internet based projects

The funding will facilitate an expansion of Internet based projects, radio stations and web-casts which are locally run and managed to give young people spaces and forums to share their views and discuss issues such as democracy and shared values. By encouraging young people to discuss these issues openly we will seek to undermine the influence of extremists who use the web as a propaganda tool to radicalise young British Muslims.

Working directly with Muslim communities - including with Muslim women to tackle the false ideology

Extremists distort the true nature of Islam in order to justify their hatred and violence. Study circles, citizenship teaching, seminars and workshops run by youth leaders and Islamic scholars will help young people to develop a firmer grounding in Islam and rebut the arguments of those who preach division and hatred.
Alongside that the funding will enable a major expansion of leadership training for Muslim women and young people. This is likely to include training to enable communities to benefit from the skills and experience of community leaders, for example in the business community.

A new national network of Muslim women will be established to advise Government and work with communities across the country. This will enable us to ensure that more women's voices are heard and develop a clearer view of what needs to be done to support Muslim women - eg developing leadership skills.

Supporting communities to drive up standards of governance in mosques

Strong Mosques positioned at the centre of the community and effectively governed will be better placed to serve and enrich those communities. It will also leave them better placed to confront and isolate extremists' efforts to infiltrate their communities.

The Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB) has launched a consultation on a framework of core minimum standards for mosques in the UK. This will help bring about improvements in governance, promote stronger leadership and communication skills for imams, strengthen financial management and develop mosques as centres of community cohesion and citizenship. MINAB will provide practical advice, guidance and support to Muslim communities.

Notes to editors

This Press Notice applies to England

1. Hazel Blears' speech to the conference Preventing Extremism: Strengthening Communities can be found at www.communities.gov.uk.

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