Founded in Kasserine in April 2011, the Beder Organisation has since expanded into the Greater Tunis, Jendouba, Gafsa and Sidi Bouzid without altering its initial focus on the promotion of goodgovernance and on the empowerment and inclusion of young people and women.In 2016, Beder merged with the National YouthInitiative Against Terrorism (NYIAT) which was the first youth-led organisationdedicated to preventing violent extremism. This merger resulted in the creation of Beder’s Resilience and Social Cohesion (RSC) department which has since focused on peacebuilding, human security, and preventing violent extremism(PVE). That same year, Beder’s RSC department kicked-off its first medium-scale PVE project, Sharekna, in partnership with FHI 360. Fundedby USAID, this project consisted in empowering young people from the capital's marginalised suburbs to map their communities’ grievances and carry out interventions to address local drivers of radicalisation. During that period,Beder also received funding from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office to support the Government of Tunisia’s Alternative Narrative Platform – a PVEstrategic communications unit. Beder did so by contributing to the PVE MediaStage project and producing To The Mirage, a docufiction on radicalising pathways, and a series of 10 TV spots to raise awareness of radicalisation. At that stage, Beder’s RSC department was still constrained to implement ready-made projects conceived by donors. But these early experiences allowed Beder to build trust and showcase its capabilities as a pioneer Tunisian organisation in PVE. This experience notably allowed Beder’sRSC department to make itself known to the National Counter-Terrorism Committeewhich now regularly invites our team as key civil society interlocutors inrelation to the National Strategy Against Extremism and Terrorism.Beder now designs its own projects for which itsolicits local and international funding, allowing the RSC department to testinnovative approaches. Locally-designed, medium- to large-scale projects of theRSC department include:·
Houmty: A human security project aimed at enhancing community resilience and collective efficacy by fostering responsiveness to the needs of young people as well as collaboration and mutual understanding between local authorities and marginalised young people in borderland communities. Houmty was funded by theSwiss Confederation.·
Joussour: A PVE programme aimed at establishing early-warning systems and referral mechanisms in local communities. Joussour is funded by the Foreign and CommonwealthOffice. Beder has also launched a Health Department which operatesSauve.tn, an information platform for healthcare professionals, and is currently co-delivering SAHA, a large US-funded programme focusing on the digitisation of the Ministry of Health and on the governance of the health sector. Beder is launching two new projects related to Human Rights based Preventing Violent Extremism.Should you need any further details please do not hesitate to contact me at any time. And I will be filling the online form tomorrow with all needed details.