Diamant resilience training

The Diamant resilience training is based on the observation that many young Muslims in the Netherlands feel treated unjustly because of their ethnicity or religion. The training aims to increase an individual's resilience to violent extremism by strengthening participants’ self-esteem and increasing their agency, perspective taking skills, and empathy. The training consists of three modules conducted over three months. Certified trainers work with adolescents in groups of about 15.

Key takeaways

A longitudinal evaluation of 46 male and female Muslim young people who participated in the training showed:

• The training significantly increased participants' reports of agency
• A marginal increase was found in reported self‐esteem, empathy and perspective taking but also narcissism
• Attitudes toward ideology‐based violence and own violent intentions were significantly lower after the training than before.
• Higher reports of empathy were related to less positive attitudes toward ideology‐based violence.

These results suggest that an intervention aimed at empowering individuals, in combination with strengthening empathy, is successful in countering violent radicalization, noting that participants were not members of extremist groups and did not show signs of radicalization.