The Council is proud to have hosted a pilot program directed at combating violent extremism among young people in Chicago by bringing together youth workers and youth influencers of different backgrounds from around the city for a 2 day workshop at the University of Illinois in Chicago’s health campus.
Representatives from multiple organizations engaged interfaith dialogue and community development gathered to discuss contemporary problems facing today’s digital generation, study the reciprocal relationship between worldwide social developments and their digital manifestations, and begin developing local initiatives that could serve as productive countermeasures against online threats that prey upon the social alienation among young people in our communities by addressing both the causes and manifestations of the online threats and the social alienation.
This program was made possible by cooperation with Muflehun (a non-profit organization launched in 2012 and based in Washington DC that focuses on preventing radicalization and enhancing community safeguards against negative influences on social media) as well as Life After Hate, a US based non-profit created in 2009 by former white-supremacists seeking to rehabilitate extremists seeking a way out of a culture of hatred.
Together with both Council members and non-members, Viral Peace was an opportunity for an exchange of ideas, strategies, and information that served to knit closer ties between community workers with common goals across the Chicagoland area.