Peace and tolerance program was launched in 2016. The goal of the program is to maintain secular and syncretic culture by building social harmony, fostering peace, tolerance, mutual respect and inclusive human society with community resilient for targeted communities. Independently, the targeted communities will be able to prevent and counter violent extremism by ensuring institutional functioning across to build a social approach which is effective, accountable and inclusive. The program evolves around youth population for enhancing their knowledge and skills in de-radicalization and respecting others view. Through whole-of-society holistic approach the program implements in radicalize context addressing the demand for de-radicalization with tailor-make solution in indigenous knowledge, culture of respect-trust-love and empathy. 

Strategic approach

• Consortium approach and community lead preventing radicalization in addressing potential drivers of violent extremism.
• A shift from exclusion to inclusion for preventing youth against extremism.
• Approaches starting from ethics course in educational institute to open discussion with family members.
• Program fits into GoB goal
• The program contributes in achieving SDG goal 16– Peace and Justice and strong institutions.

Key achievements

 For developing positive narrative, we have capacitated youth from 189 peace clubs with resource mobilization and social media entrepreneurship. Those youths who have been capacitated are able to share their knowledge, learning and experiences to the policy makers and development associates in youth summits. We have mobilized 993 university students from 8 universities for peace-building and social inclusion activities to reduce the threat of radicalization led to violent extremism. Khulna university incorporated a course on peace and tolerance in their curriculum. Nationally, we were successful in developing a knowledge network hub on preventing violent extremism (PVE) for practitioners. 

Our current project

Preventing Extremism through Active Community Engagement Consortium (PEACE Consortium)

In July 2016, Holey Artisan Bakery incident was Bangladesh’s worst attack to date. Against this backdrop, PEACE consortium funded by Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) and supervised by Country Strategy Mechanism (CSM) under Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) of the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh was launched. The goal of the project is to empower youth through building youth friendly platform by providing basic life skills, critical thinking opportunity, social media literacy, voluntarism and developing leadership capacity. The project is five organizations consortium approach led by Rupantar in 5 districts, 12 upazillas, 3 city corporation,123 unions, 5 municipalties, 61 wards of Khulna city corporation and Rajshahi city corporation.

Our reach

• Beneficiaries – 1,178,760 with 471,504 Female and 707,256 Male
• Direct: 38,601 and Indirect: 1,140,159

Our stakeholders

Adolescent, youth, community people, local elected bodies, government officials and religious leaders

Development partners

• Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF)