The Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Fund is set up to support community and civil society organisations to deliver initiatives that counter and build resilience to violent extremism and radicalisation.
The Fund recognises that communities and sectors outside of government play an important role in helping prevent and counter violent extremism in Aotearoa New Zealand. This initiative supports the Government’s wider response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch Terrorist Attacks.
There was a great deal of interest in the first round of funding, which closed in May 2023. Below is the list of successful projects.
The second round of funding will open at the end of August 2023.
You can apply or read more about the Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Fund on the Department of Internal Affairs Community Matters website.
Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Fund: Round one successful projects
| Project name | Project description | Grant amount |
|---|---|---|
| MOSAIC tool and online hub | This project will utilise the MOSAIC resource to create an online interactive tool to support challenging conversations related to matters of identity, violence, hate and racism and establish a community of practice and collate accessible readings and visual resources to support the online tool. | $50,000 |
| Cyber safety resources for the autistic community | Focus on developing resources for the prevention of violent extremism in autistic young people and support wider cyber safety for the autistic community. | $50,000 |
| Proactive approach to understanding radicalisation to violence | The project provides common sense and practical resources on the emotional and psychological stages of radicalisation to teachers, principals and students and other at-risk audiences. | $50,000 |
| Capability training for Imam and community leaders working with in prisons | This project funds capability training to support Imams and key community leaders to provide faith-based counselling, education and mentoring to Muslim inmates in prisons. | $50,000 |
| Building capability for Muslim leaders | This project builds capability of imams and religious leaders to understand of the root causes of violent extremism, recognise concerning behaviours, and develop narratives that counter extremist messaging. | $50,000 |
| Countering media content to increase resistance to mis/disinformation | This project will focus on developing counter narratives, media content and artifacts designed to increase resistance to mis/disinformation. |
$50,000 |
| Challenging harmful ideas about transgender people | This project aims to enhance understanding of and challenge harmful ideas about trans-people in Aotearoa New Zealand and create resources that promote understanding of the issues facing transgender people. | $49,950 |
| Paeringa o te iwi - Protector of the People | Paeringa o te iwi - Protector of the People is an awareness, education, and intervention tool that combines objective, holistic socio-political analysis, open-source intelligence (OSINT), and data-driven geospatial mapping to identify harmful ideologies in each region, build localised risk profiles, and produce reports to build community resilience against violent extremism. | $50,000 |
| Making online hate visible | This project will provide publicly accessible, community-specific dashboards showing the levels, nature, and intensity of online posting of extremist ideas about at-risk communities (eg, Muslim, Jewish, LGBTQ and Māori communities). It will also provide a baseline of data for public discourse on hate and extremism. | $50,000 |
| Building capability to respond to antisemitism | This project aims to upskill teachers and schools to prevent violent extremism through creation of lessons for understanding Judaism and the roots of antisemitism and develop tools to respond to incidents of antisemitism on campus. | $49,950 |
| CHILL Project | The CHILL Project is an online social media campaign to challenge misconceptions about Muslim women and create a positive and inclusive space that celebrates the achievements and contributions of Muslim women. | $50,000 |
| Promoting correct interpretation of Islamic religious texts | Promoting correct interpretation of Islamic religious texts This project will produce counter-narratives to counter and correct any misinterpretation of Islamic religious texts that may be used by some to justify violence to achieve political objectives. $5,000 |
$5,000 |
| Building capability in the Redirect Method | Partnering with Moonshot to train and upskill Netsafe staff in the Redirect Method to build capability in redirection to counter radicalisation to violence in New Zealand’s online ecosystem. | $50,000 |
| Hui on issues facing international students | Deliver a 1-day conference that aims to identify and address the specific challenges faced by international students in relation to violent extremism. | $16,000 |
| Empowering communities to take a proactive role in prevention of violent extremism | This project will use a positive and safe space for refugee and migrant communities in NZ to promote awareness of the danger of online extremism and radicalisation to violence and promote digital and media literacy critical thinking. | $50,000 |