füruns Extremismusprävention

In Austria, there are various initiatives for preventing extremism, but these are mostly focused on social work in direct contact with clients or on schools. In the field of civic engagement, where around 49% of people over the age of 15 volunteer, there has been a lack of targeted measures. Volunteers and volunteer coordinators can be directly confronted with extremism and extremist ideologies during their engagement. Since many individuals become radicalized in spaces where they spend their leisure time, the volunteer sector plays a crucial role in prevention. Our project addresses this gap and strengthens civic engagement in dealing with extremism.

Our target is to strengthen democracy through primary and secondary prevention initiatives, such as promoting values and skills based on democracy and human rights. We encourage exchange between stakeholders in the volunteer sector and organizations active in extremism prevention, as well as networking among volunteers and volunteer coordinators. Our service center provides comprehensive support: it assesses the needs of stakeholders, prepares information on existing offerings, collaboratively develops new formats, and establishes a pool of experts. A website serves as a central platform for information and networking on a nationwide level in Austria.

The Center for Civil Society acts as a coordination and networking hub in this project, making existing initiatives specifically accessible to volunteers, volunteer organizations, and civil society. Furthermore, we create spaces to develop new initiatives and engage the broadest possible segments of civil society. Collaborations with existing organizations form the foundation for leveraging the expertise of external partners in the field of extremism prevention and creating synergies.

The innovation in implementation lies, on the one hand, in aligning our offerings with current developments. For example, following the display of the "wolf salute" during the FIFA World Cup, we organized an online workshop on the topic of "Grey Wolves." In the "Super Election Year 2024," one of our focal points was mobilizing voters, and the program of the Civil Courage Symposium 2024 was shaped by relevant topics such as anti-Muslim racism, homo- and transphobia, and right-wing extremism. On the other hand, the innovation lies in pooling existing resources, leveraging synergies, and making expertise accessible by collaborating with practitioners. Instead of reinventing the wheel, we create targeted, practical offerings tailored to the needs of our target groups.

füruns Extremism Prevention is excellently networked across Austria. Since 2023, we have been a member of the No Hate Speech Committee, collaborating with leading actors in extremism prevention, developing public outreach strategies, and responding to current challenges together. We maintain regular exchanges with new partners and funding bodies at the municipal, state, and federal levels. Municipalities approach us to co-develop formats for their citizens or to leverage our expertise in networking. Even schools, which are not our primary target group, request workshops from us. In such cases, we refer them to free offerings, such as those provided by the Austrian Agency for Education and Internationalisation (OeAD).