Ideological, radical, religious and socio-cultural narratives have been contorted to push the agenda of extremist activities and movements across Nigeria and Africa at large. Structural issues such as lack of inclusion, poor education, unemployment and poverty, lack of infrastructure and sustainable means of livelihood contribute to the driving factors behind violent extremism. Hence, resolving the contextual problem of Violent extremism and extremist activities requires a holistic and all-hands-on-deck approach and as such, AYGF is committed to developing initiatives and advocacy efforts that seek to address and curb the menace that is Violent extremism.

AYGF has developed a campaign on violent extremism tagged “Campaign Against Violent Extremism” which is a community-based initiative targeted at at-risk youth and women between the age of 15-35 years in the North-East region in Nigeria. The goal of the campaign is to curb recruitment into violent extremist groups through awareness creation, early detection trainings and livelihood empowerment initiatives. The campaign at its core, adopts deep community engagement and advocacy with youth and community leaders, women and security agencies in the bid to gain increased local contextual understanding to ensure the beneficiaries’ needs are being met. Furthermore, strategic advocacy is equally being conducted with relevant government stakeholders to ensure the key campaign messages and objectives reach the appropriate authorities to support policy advocacy efforts and social and behavioral change communication regarding the spread of hate-speech, misinformation, grooming and recruitment in violent extremist organizations.