Summit of the "Global Alliance of Youth Movements Against Violent Extremism "

Between 4th and 5th December 2008, the Quilliam Foundation participated in the "Global Alliance of Youth Movements Against Violent Extremism" Global Summit organized by HowCast Media, Youtube, Google, Facebook, MTV, Access 360 Media, Columbia Law School and others.

The Quilliam Foundation participated as observers at the summit which was held in New York City. An alliance of grass-roots movements with millions of subscribers from across the world gathered in New York to explore cooperation and best practice, concentrating on on-line networking, in combating violent extremism in all its forms. The gathering was inspired by the success of One Million Voices Against the FARC, a group started on Facebook.com by young people in Colombia. Aided by social networking technologies, the organization inspired 12 million people in 190 cities around the world to take to the streets in protest against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a terrorist group operating in Colombia for over 40 years. The magnitude of the marches illustrated once and for all that the FARC lacked a strong support base. Within days of the protest, the FARC witnessed massive desertions from their ranks. 

The summit brought together other movements of similar success so that new and aspiring groups could learn and replicate best practice. Speakers included Oscar Morales, founder of One Million Voices Against the FARC, Whoopie Goldberg, Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook co-founder) and Under Secretary of State James Glassman. The summit ended with participants releasing a 'How To' guide on building grass-roots movements against violent extremism to empower youth for positive change in oppressive climates. This field manual was complied as a challenge to Al Qaeda's manual on terrorism found by coalition forces in Iraq.