The Story of Maysa
Key message
This exercise provides young people with a detailed case study of a real-life girl who engaged in radical behaviour. It allows young people to discuss the process of radicalisation, the factors which influenced the girl's behaviour, and the different routes people can take into engaging in terrorist behaviour including the use of social media for radicalisation.
Key words: understanding radicalisation, pathways into terrorism, social media in radicalisation
Summary
This exercise helps participants to analyse the potential causes of radicalisation and explore the connections between this and a range of social causes.
LessKey message
This exercise provides young people with a detailed case study of a real-life girl who engaged in radical behaviour. It allows young people to discuss the process of radicalisation, the factors which influenced the girl's behaviour, and the different routes people can take into engaging in terrorist behaviour including the use of social media for radicalisation.
Key words: understanding radicalisation, pathways into terrorism, social media in radicalisation
Summary
This exercise helps participants to analyse the potential causes of radicalisation and explore the connections between this and a range of social causes.
Key message
This exercise provides young people with a detailed case study of a real-life girl who engaged in radical behaviour. It allows young people to discuss the process of radicalisation, the factors which influenced the girl's behaviour, and the different routes people can take into engaging in terrorist behaviour including the use of social media for radicalisation.
Key words: understanding radicalisation, pathways into terrorism, social media in radicalisation
Summary
This exercise helps participants to analyse the potential causes of radicalisation and explore the connections between this and a range of social causes.
- Module
- Intervention
- Duration
- 1 hour
- Group size
- medium
- large
- Group age
- 12 - 15
- 16 - 19
- 20 - 24
Exercise Category: Activities / Exercises
CC - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Purpose
- Using a real life case study to help participants understand the dynamics of Radicalisation
- To show how terrorism evolves and help participants explore the different pathways into terrorist violence
Participants
Suitable for use with a wide variety of groups but may be most relevant to teenagers; non-gender specific.
Description
The facilitator reads out the story of Maysa (a real life case study taken from an article in the Guardian newspaper) and asks participants for feedback and comments in relation to the issues raised in her story. This can be done in the format of a general large group discussion or by breaking participants into smaller working groups if you feel that this would be a better format for discussion, with each group then feeding back their key discussion points to the main group.
Materials needed
Case study of Maysa
Methodology
Case study analysis, Small group discussion, Large group discussion
Advice for Trainer
Questions to prompt discussion could include:
- What are your initial reactions to the story?
- Is it believable, if yes why? if no why not?
- Would you be aware of people like Maysa amongst your peers?
- What do you think needs to be done to prevent these stories happening?
- What would you say to Maysa if she was your friend and you suspected what was going on?
Source / Literature
The Guardian Newspaper, 26th November, 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/26/radicalisation-islam-isis-maysa-not-thinking-my-thoughts-not-myself