- Elizabeth Johnston
Welcome to the Efus podcast, a podcast produced by the European Forum for Urban Security in collaboration with the IcARUS Project, Innovative Approaches to Urban Security. I'm Elizabeth Johnston, the Executive Director of FHUSE, the European network of 250 local and regional authorities dedicated to urban security policies. I'm very glad today to be joined by Valeria Vasiljeva, Project Leader, Icarus for the City of Stuttgart.
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
Hello, nice to meet you all.
- Elizabeth Johnston
as well as by Ilyas, a magician.
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
He's actually a former policeman. It's really important for what we're going to discuss today.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Welcome to both of you. I'm very excited to hear more and share with the audience how you developed and why you developed Trick 17, an innovative tool to address the issue of radicalization among young people. Valeriya, why don't you start out by explaining what Trick 17 is exactly?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
Imagine that you are going through the city of Stuttgart, usually second half of the day, and a lot of young people are strolling along the streets. You start hearing the music, it's very enchanting music, maybe from Harry Potter, but we're not sure about it. So you come a bit closer and you understand that there is a magician there showing something very fun, very attractive. It all starts with the money trick, so you are even more involved. Now the people are coming, and as far as you are going further into the tricks, you start suspecting that something is not right there. But you cannot tell for sure because it's all fun, it's all very involving, and it's all very promising. Until the last moment when the magician opens all the cards for you and discusses with you what it in reality was. It was an innovative tool of the city of Stuttgart called Trick 17, and it's devoted to increase the resilience of young people in Germany against the radicalisation.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Excellent. So what you were trying to achieve is to improve young people's critical thinking and to challenge them on this issue of critical thinking. We're very happy to have with us also Ilyas, the magician who helped implement this very concretely. Do you think magic is an easy way to reach people, to touch people?
- Elyas
I would say it's the best way to reach people because you don't need language. You can show visual. without speaking what happens and no matter which language which age or which nationality or religion every people is very surprised and happy to see magic tricks yes
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
sure i would say that the art approach also the magic is a form of art magical show is a form of art art approach allows us to include what's called emotional sustainability young people you definitely going to be discussing trick 17 afterwards how it was how the magician was mean to them and then in the end explained his behavior and took time to discuss the really interesting things with them such as democracy values and how to behave if somebody in front of your eyes is humiliated and how we can be resilient in everyday life so Valeriya you've seen this happen
- Elizabeth Johnston
on site many, many times. Can you share with us some of the reactions of the audience?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
For me, one of the most valuable moments was the reaction of the auditory that you usually cannot reach at all. We were giving a demonstration near the Trade Center, and we could reach young people about 14, 19 years. They stayed, and they wanted to discuss, and they wanted to communicate, and they wanted to analyse. In that moment, I was feeling oh my god this trick is working and i put so much effort into writing a script and working together with elias how it should be and he did it perfectly in talking to them in the street so at school you will have a little bit more elaborated version because let's be honest students cannot run away so you can hold them until the end and discuss more in details but in the street you need to be cautious and elias does it perfectly. He was so charming and on the other hand pushing with the themes that we needed to include and discuss with this young auditory. This moment was the most precious for me.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Valeria, can you tell us a little bit more about which issue you were trying to address specifically when you developed this tool?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
Yeah, we were looking for an unusual way to combat the radicalisation in the city of Stuttgart. Of course, not only in the city of Stuttgart, because we are working inside of the whole country. And we usually use cross-phenomenal approach to work. It means that the tool is completely usable not only for the city of Stuttgart. but for the other cities in Germany and also for the other cities in other European countries. We were looking for the tool that will help us to increase the resilience against the radicalisation in Germany for the young people. We were looking for the opportunity to talk to young people from, let's say, 14 to 27 in the streets. and make them aware of the false promises that the radicalisation groups usually make for the young people who are looking, who are searching for attention and appreciation. This tool was supposed to work like a vaccine effect. As far as you getting extremely emotionally involved into the tool, and you are getting very unhappy in the end that this is planned, you will remember that, and next time when somebody is promising you that... The group that you will join and the group that's promising you that you will be the special one, but it will end in a radicalization process, you will remember this experience and you will not join it.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Elias, do you feel you reached people through magic or through your police work?
- Elyas
My experience as a former policeman with my confidence and my background, with my black hair, with my Turkish background, it was very helpful to reach the people better. in the heart, in the mind. And we didn't say it on the beginning that I am a police officer. We said it after that. And it was very helpful because they are listening then to me better than without saying I am a police officer.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Valeria, how did you and Ilyas meet up?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
Yeah, it was more like an accident. We met at German Prevention Day. It's a really big conference for 700 people. We saw Elias there together with Alexej Boris, the CEO of the InsideOut, that I also represent. And we understood immediately that's exactly the person that would help us to elaborate the trick 17. Because you will never ever find another person who combines the magical tricks with the policeman knowledge. We started working with Elias and I asked him to elaborate the simple tricks that could be repeated by anyone. You should not be a magician to show them. You can be only a social worker. Then I wrote a script and we packed the main three thematics that we would like to show in the Trick 17. That was a gender problematic, foreigner problematic and radicalization group problematic.
- Elizabeth Johnston
And Valeriya, were authorities in Stuttgart a bit dubious at the beginning or easy to convince about this very innovative technique?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
I must confess they were easy to convince. I will not be even pretending that we had much obstacles because Rathaus Stuttgart on itself was rather impressed with the script that I showed to them and we got the authorities to allow us to show the demonstration work week. The funny moment that I would like to share when we were doing the demonstration near the Trade Center the policeman on the spot he comes to check if everything's all right, if we have the right to show this Trick 17. And he comes and this young auditory, of course, they feel a little bit unsure the police is coming. But then we involved the policeman into the show. We said applause to the policeman and everybody was relaxed.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Very concretely, do you move around different areas of the city or is it always in the same spot in the city?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
Yeah, we tried Trick 17. in different places in the city and the main idea was to try it in controlled and not controlled surroundings and by controlled surroundings i mean school what i would like not to repeat we did trick 17 not far away from the train station and it was really distracting for people because they wanted to take the train and it was also not safe feeling around the station so it didn't work properly the best place that we did it was the near the Trade Center.
- Elizabeth Johnston
And why was that the best place? Because it's an open space with a lot of different types of people coming through?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
Exactly. It's an open space perceived from the end users as a safe space because where they used to hang out usually and all the other people they can join and go away without any disturbance.
- Elizabeth Johnston
One of the aspects that I think is super interesting also in Trick 17 is that it doesn't... stop at this interaction in the street. If I'm not mistaken, there's a follow-up on social media. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, Valeria?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
Sure. It's what's called online street work. You make the Trick 17 not to stop as far as you stop, discuss the problems that are involved in the show. And you discuss them further in the Instagram page. You can ask the questions, you can pull the stories, and young people can react and think about the questions that they usually not asked about.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Valeria, could you tell us a little bit more about how the follow-up online street work allows you? to explore these issues of democratic values, of critical thinking, etc.
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
You know, in the modern times, young auditory develops so many parasocial connections. It means that they're listening to the influencers on TikTok and on Instagram, and they repeat what they say. So to influence them back, you have to organize the group that will discuss the same things from the other point of view. That's what we try to achieve. we were asking questions. Is it okay to have a foreigner as a friend? Shall girls go to school or they are not so clever as the boys? And as far as the questions are provocative, you can see some reactions. But first of all, they were attracted because of the trick 17, because they wanted to follow up the tricks. They wanted to see again the stories and the videos where they are. They wanted to share with their friends. They wanted to tag their friends. They want to visit us again.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Who moderates this online street work and who follows up with all these probably very complex questions that are brought up?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
Usually the social workers that were showing the trick 17, they deal with the Instagram questions and reactions.
- Elizabeth Johnston
What is the most challenging aspect in your opinion on this online street work that you follow up with?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
The most complicated thing is to be consistent and to post and to ask and to... question and to tag. So this is the most important part because usually young people are already engaged and they would like to see and to hear from you more. So the main thing is not to drop them at this moment and just be with them there.
- Elizabeth Johnston
A lot of our cities are tackling the same types of issues and are going to be very interested in this tool. What is your advice to a city that would like to set up such a scheme, both offline? and online?
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
The main thing is to choose the engaged team that is ready to work mobile. It could be online street work, it could be offline street work, and they should be ready to combine these two approaches and be really involved in the process. For that, I would recommend to speak with the stakeholders of the city before you implement Trick 17 and to see which organizations are interested. Usually in Germany, It's Stadtjugendring and the other social organisations that work mobile with people of young age. And also the most important thing is to choose the team that will be working on the spot. As a magician, it could be a man or a woman, it doesn't matter. It should be somebody who has experience of mobile social working and not far from some theater experience.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Let me thank you warmly, Ilyas. Thank you for joining us and sharing your very valuable and very unique experience. Thank you, Ilyas.
- Elyas
Thank you.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Thank you, Valeriya, for sharing your expertise and your advice on this very innovative and original tool. I'm sure it will be very inspiring to a lot of cities that tackle the same issues and that also want to instill critical thinking amongst their youth.
- Valeriya Vasilyeva
Thank you very much. I was really appreciating this opportunity.
- Elizabeth Johnston
Thank to both of you and thank to our audience for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this episode, which was produced in the framework of the Icarus Project, Innovative Approaches to Urban Security, funded by the European Commission. We look forward to sharing more insights and discussions with you in the future, so don't forget to subscribe to this podcast and visit our website. Stay tuned for the next episode of the Efus Podcast.
