‘Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) through Youth Online Engagement’ was a month-long online course organized by the Centre for Equality and Justice (CEJ). This included undergraduates from the Universities of Peradeniya and Colombo in Sri Lanka. The first session was on ‘Theory on PVE,’ where all participants learnt how and why violent extremism takes place in society and within communities. This was followed by an informative introduction to the PVE Course, including the teaching of theories. In the next 5 weeks, we learnt about the difference between freedom of speech and hate speech, the role of youth in PVE with a focus on the role of women, ethical messaging, basics of media usage in PVE, and online safety. The last unit of learning was about existing laws and cybersecurity complaint platforms.

All these sessions were equally interesting and enlightening, therefore I cannot pick a favourite session. The most impactful learning I received was in understanding and identifying the difference between a statement that carries hate speech from an ordinary statement. As youth, it is our right to enjoy freedom of speech, but it is also our responsibility to not exceed the limit and go beyond it to make any hateful remarks. As an active participant throughout this course module, I was able to understand this difference and identify the role I can play as a youth to prevent violent extremism.

This course module also opened several doors for me to get involved with CEJ in their PVE campaign. I consider this a great opportunity to put all I learnt into practice and see how much of an impact I could create as an individual. One of the activities I was engaged in was the ‘Make a Friend-Send a Message’ campaign. It gave me the platform to pledge that I will stand against hate speech and any sort of violent extremist activities carried in our society. There were several other participants who were involved in this activity apart from myself. I also contributed to the reaction video series organized by CEJ under the project ‘Web Walkers’. The purpose of this activity was to capture how youth individually react to images portraying forms of violent extremism. This was conducted in all three languages. I also took part in the production of the Digital Scrapbook.

My opinion with regard to the online course module on PVE is that it was definitely a long term investment of my time, as I am still reaping the fruits out of the seed that was planted in me during my learning period.

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This programme implemented by the Centre for Equality and Justice (CEJ) was part of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s regional project on “Preventing Violent Extremism through promoting tolerance and respect for diversity” funded by the European Union.

About the author:

Ranmalee Nanayakkara is a final-year undergraduate at the Department of International Relations at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.