Our Objectives
Rising levels of radicalisation and Islamophobia have become major challenges and threats to the existence of multicultural communities and inter-faith harmony prevalent in the United Kingdom. While the government has formulated a comprehensive strategy to counter these threats, it is widely accepted that governments alone cannot prevent extreme views and radicalisation. Therefore, local communities need to take initiatives and formulate projects as part of national strategic response needed at this critical juncture of our history.
Anti-Radicalisation Mentoring & Awareness Network [AMAN] has been set up to promote community resilience, social harmony and democratic values. Our main objective is to strengthen resilience at individual and local community’s levels against extremist agendas and Islamophobia. By resilience, we mean that individuals and communities must be empowered to have the ability to resist and reject extremist ideologies based on a clear understanding of facts and a strong sense of identity and belonging to the fundamental British values of democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.
Drivers of radicalization and extremism are often complex and vary at individual level. Various studies have found economic, social, cultural and political exclusion coupled with marginalization and ignorance as the major contributing factors for extremism and radicalisation. We, therefore, believe that religious teachings promoting peace, tolerance and dialogue can provide the much-needed counter-narrative to extremist propaganda. Besides that intercultural dialogue and personal exchanges between young people has been identified as a key method of building resilience to extremist propaganda.
On the other hand, to harness individuals’ potential for bringing positive changes in their lives as well as foster community cohesion, a holistic approach consisting of a set of interventions such as education, mentoring, counselling and skills training is imperative to promote community engagement and social entrepreneurship among youth and other segments of the society. It is expected that the stated interventions would build community resilience and contribute positively in improving individual well-being.
