Launched across Canada in February 2015, Extreme Dialogue aims to reduce the appeal of extremism among young people and offer a positive alternative to the increasing amounts of extremist material and propaganda available on the Internet and social media platforms.
The Film and resource feature Fowzia Duale Virtue, a youth outreach worker from Toronto and a member of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. Fowzia Duale Virtue was born to a crisp desert oasis called Nooleeyaa Quudhaacley in Somalia. After fleeing civil war, Fowzia moved with her mother to Canada to be reunited with her father and the other family members. She has worked as a dedicated Provincial Youth Outreach Worker for a number of years and is now the lead case worker of a Gang Prevention and Intervention Project called Project Turn Around at Midaynta Community Services.
A series of short documentary films tell the personal stories of Canadians profoundly affected by violent extremism; a former member of the extreme far-right and a mother whose son was killed fighting for ISIS in Syria. The films are accompanied by a set of educational resources that can be used with young people in classrooms or community settings and are intended to build resilience to extremism through active discussion and enhanced critical thinking. These resources include Prezi presentations and practitioners’ resource packs and are available via the “Stories” pages in both English and French.
Funded by Public Safety Canada via the Kanishka Project, Extreme Dialogue has brought together project partners the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, film-makers Duckrabbit, and the educational charity Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Extreme Dialogue will also be coming to Europe in 2016, with funding provided for additional films and educational resources by the European Commission and support from project partners West London Initiative in the UK, Cultures Interactive in Germany and Political Capital in Hungary.
