July 13 – July 14, 2023, Washington, D.C.
American University, Washington College of Law’s Claudio Grossman Hall 4300 Nebraska Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20016
The in-person Train-the-Trainers event was an interactive workshop serving 40+ trainee participants from approximately 20 stakeholder groups, addressing the needs of small and mid-sized communities, grassroots organizations, and institutions. The event takes a community-first approach, meaning that it will be planned and directed with extensive input from attendees to reflect the needs of each community. The day and a half event empowered attendees to build resilience in their communities, using workshop training, panel speakers, two technical practicums, and facilitated networking opportunities. These provided actionable, empirically-proven “turnkey” processes which participants can share with their communities to prevent radicalization to violent extremism, foster dialogue, and build off ramps for at-risk community members. Participants were introduced to the use of cutting edge short-form video technology, which builds on PERIL and partners’ existing competencies in media literacy training and “prebunking” interventions, imparting shoestring budget, media production skills to participants, along with ways of using the new media landscape to empower their voices and goals. The event brought together grassroots organizations working on-the-ground towards more resilient communities, along with leading experts and practitioners in the field with representation from organizations focused on civil dialogue, education, faith-based groups, violence prevention, veterans’ organizations, and local government.