News

Photo: Andre Hunter – Unsplash

Project Someone Director, Vivek Venkatesh, recently appeared on CBC’s Radio Noon Quebec with Shawn Apel to discuss online hate, aggression and violence.

Listen to their conversation.

Project Someone Director, Vivek Venkatesh, recently joined Minister Ahmed Hussen and the beneficiary organizations of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) funding programme at the launch of Canada’s 2030 Agenda National Strategy.   

Minister Hussen explored current ideas in the public sphere, including the discourse surrounding systemic and institutional racism and the institutional barriers that prevent people from succeeding and contributing their full potential.  

Venkatesh explained how Project Someone is developing and implementing community-driven solutions that challenge discrimination and contribute to SDGs in Canada: “Project Someone has taken a very community–facing and participatory action research framework devoting ourselves to the reduction of hate and discrimination as precursors to violent extremism, but we do this as a function of education through critical digital literacy. And so, we are looking to create spaces for pluralistic dialogue which are embedded as all types of curricular modules.”  

These include:  

• multimedia presentations and online courses  
• community developed and created art installations and performances  
• Research creation  
• documentaries and Podcasts   
• multimedia materials   
• MOOCs focusing on social pedagogy  
• publishing policy briefs driven by analyses of social conversations. 

 Venkatesh also highlighted Project Someone’s latest projects involving key government members and community stakeholders in Chicoutimi and Edmonton, looking at how workshops that magnify indigenous and racialized communities’ narratives can be brought to the forefront by sustainably empowering these communities. 

Watch the interview from March 19, 2021.   

Project Someone collaborators Rawda Harb and Kathryn Urbaniak will present Advocating for and Magnifying Marginalized Voices: A Chat with Project SOMEONE at the upcoming English Montreal School Board (EMSB) virtual parent conference on Sunday, April 18.

More information and registration.

The Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Radicalization and Extremist Violence (CPN-PREV), an evidence-based and practitioners-centered network funded by Public Safety Canada’s Community Resilience Fund and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, recently published A Systematic Review on the Outcomes of Primary and Secondary Prevention Programs in the Field of Violent Radicalization.

The authors include CSLP and Project Someone members and collaborators Ghayda Hassan, Cécile Rousseau, Vivek Venkatesh, David Morin, Jihan Rabah, and David Pickup, as well as co-authors Sébastien Brouillette-Alarie, Sarah Ousman, Deniz Kilinc, Éléa Laetitia Savard, Wynnpaul Varela, Lysiane Lavoie, Arber Fetiu, Shandon Harris-Hogan, Evgueni Borokhovski, Pablo Madriaza, Sara K. Thompson, John McCoy, Mylène Boivin, Manasvini Srimathi Narayana, and Emmanuel Danis.

The 149-page comprehensive report looks at the rise in extremist threats worldwide over the past two decades that have led governments to respond by investing significant amounts of money in the prevention of violent radicalization and extremism. However, their effectiveness and possible repercussions remain largely unknown. With this in mind, the Systematic Review examines the effectiveness of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention programs in preventing violent extremism (PVE) and evaluates their ability to counter violent radicalization successfully.

You can access the report here: CPN-PREV – 2nd Systematic Review

On February 17, the Government of Canada released Moving Forward Together – Canada’s 2030 Agenda National Strategy.  

To promote and celebrate this launch, Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, will host a bilingual virtual event with Sustainable Development Goals Funding Program recipients, including Project Someone Director Vivek Venkatesh.    

Date: Friday, March 19, 2021  

Time: 3:00 p.m. to 3:40 p.m. (EDT)  

To event will stream on Facebook Live.

“Socio-cultural correlates of self-reported experiences of discrimination related to COVID-19 in a culturally diverse sample of Canadian adults” is a new publication by McGill University postdoctoral fellows Diana Miconi and Rochelle Founfelker and co-authors McGill University’s Zhi Yin Li, Project Someone collaborator Cécile Rousseau and Director Vivek Venkatesh in International Journal of Intercultural Relations (March 2021).

Read or download the article here.

Project Someone Director, Vivek Venkatesh, spoke at La pandémie et les polarisations sociales : points de vue et perceptions des établissements d’éducation [The Pandemic and Social Polarizations: Views and Perceptions of Educational Institutions], where he discussed the PROFILE and Landscape of Hope projects (the talk is viewable here) Project Someone collaborators Cécile Rousseau and postdoctoral fellow, Diana Miconi, also participated.

This virtual half-day event, presented by the RAPS team and organized in collaboration with the SHERPA University Institute, the UNESCO-PREV Chair and Éducation Québec, took place April 13, 2021, from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

“The literature emphasizes the central role of education communities in prevention, but how should we view this in the specific context of Quebec? How can we prevent social polarization, considering our history, current social issues, and community resources? How do we deal with the increase of certain tensions in the context of a pandemic? ”

View the program.

The workshop, Évaluer nos pratiques d’évaluation en prévention de l’extrémisme violent: Comment faire? Produced in collaboration with  the UnescoPREV Chair and RAPS will take place Thursday February 25 from 1-4 p.m.

There are still a few places left to attend. To register, please contact: [email protected]

Photo: Adrien Olichon – Burst

Concordia University’s Faculty of Fine Arts will offer faculty, staff and teaching assistants a series of workshops including Inclusive Teaching, Academic Freedom, and Hierarchies of Knowledge in the Classroom, a panel discussion hosted by Vivek Venkatesh, with the participation of Dave Waddington, Jason Selman and Deanna Smith.

Date: March 24, 2021

Time: 1 – 2:30 p.m.

Registration for this free online event is open to the Concordia University Community, and you can register here.

More information on this event.

Photo: Alessandro Belleli

Concordia University’s Landscape of Hope initiative has received substantial funding from the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ), Canadian Heritage and the Michaëlle Jean Foundation. This will allow the transdisciplinary team to continue working with marginalized communities, including Black and racialized youth, through workshops creating installations and performative events in and around Montreal and Chicoutimi, Quebec, where the focus will be on Indigenous community partners.

Read more here.

Listen to Project SOMEONE collaborator and Landscape of Hope co-founder, Owen Chapman, talk about teaching young people to express themselves through music and visual art on CBC radio.