Meshkat community
Meshkat Community (مجتمع مِشكاة) is an initiative which strengthens community cohesion and constructive dialogue in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region by building the skills, networks, knowledge, and action of citizens.
Snapp summary report

Since 2016, PeaceGeeks Jordan has created and grown the Meshkat Community, amplifying Arab voices for social inclusion in response to hate, violence, and polarization. Meshkat works to strengthen community cohesion by identifying and training local artists, digital content producers, innovators, women, and youth, as digital content creators, utilizing PeaceGeeks’ alternative narrative and transformative change methodology.

In 2021, through a grant from the Fund for Innovation and Transformation, we focused on understanding community conceptions of gender equality and creating content to advance gender equality from the community level.

Simultaneously, we launched the 18-month-long “Local Stories, Local Voices, Local Action” project, funded by theUS State Department, which builds on the Meshkat program’s foundation that established the Digital Youth network (DYN) in Jordan. The new project engaged youth across three governorates to transform narratives of marginalization, cyber bullying, disempowerment and division in order to nurture agency, ownership, and positive community action on the most important issues facing them. By generating youth agency and powerful, positive engagement in online spaces, this project helped to increase community resilience to harmful messages, misinformation, marginalization and polarization.

Program participants created 57 locally-relevant pieces ofcontent that challenge discrimination against women and promote attitudes of gender equality:

1 song
31 short films
21 podcast episodes13 written pieces
16 pieces of visual art2 murals

These pieces of content reached over 918 000 users across online platforms in the Middle East North Africa region.

Since PeaceGeeks’ Jordan’s inception in 2016, more than400 pieces of content focusing on themes of tolerance, diversity and equality, challenging narratives of hate and polarization, have been created by Jordanian film, media and graphic artists through the Meshkat Community.

Due to the growing reputation and demand for their alternative narratives (AN) transformative change (TC)methodologies, the Jordanian PeaceGeeks team are now being sought as trainers, partners and consultants on digital content creation and youth engagement work acrossJordan and more widely in the region.

The challenge

Digital tools, social media, gaming, bots, videos, and misinformation play an increasingly prominent role in creating and amplifying existing social divisions and inciting violent actions. Despite some creative and effective online counter-messaging efforts by Arab youth and independent content producers, few resources have been dedicated to learn from these efforts or promote more media that curbs harmful narratives. Our goal is to prevent the continued escalation of social divisions and online violence by supporting the effective development and visibility of locally-produced content that strengthens constructive dialogue and creative responses to intolerance and hatred.

Welcome to Canada
All encompassing
The app is a newcomer’s one-stop-shop for settling in Canada. Whether they're looking for a job, registering for the Medical Services Plan (MSP) or just even just researching where to migrate, the app gives users to the tools to successfully jumpstart their life in Canada, from making the decision to move to Canada  the point in which they feel confident in their status as a new Canadian.
Welcome to Canada is
Multilingual
We are working very hard to have its content available in English, French, and Arabic. PeaceGeeks is currently translating the app into Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Korean, Punjabi, and Tagalog
Welcome to Canada
Relevant
Through an anonymous questionnaire, the app helps newcomers identify their most urgent tasks and recommends them to their most relevant information and services.
Welcome to Canada
Actionable
We help newcomers navigate their settlement journey step-by-step by providing intuitive recommendations for their next steps, as well as offering Maps compatibility to get them where they need to go.
Welcome to Canada
Secure
We are passionate about protecting data security and privacy, especially for communities at risk. Users do not need to provide any personal information or create an account within the app, and they can delete their user data at any time. An optional questionnaire will tailor the wealth of information within the app to the user’s needs while respecting their anonymity, alternatively, users can navigate the app through its general organization of information.
Workshops and programs
Community Resilience Workshops
These workshops facilitate open dialogue among citizens in under-resourced, rural, and marginalized communities to deliberate local challenges and responses.
Capacity Building Workshops
These workshops equip content producers, activists, community-based organizations and civil society organizations with the skills, resources, and networks to create and amplify alternative narratives.
Artists-in-Residence
Meshkat Community works with a handful of artists every year who are funded and mentored to create art — fine arts, music, videos, performing arts, creative writing, and more — engaging with various themes of peace and prevention of extremism.
Peace Awards
The annual Meshkat Peace Awards recognize communities and organizations making outstanding contributions to the creation of content promoting critical, creative thinking, and constructive dialogue to strengthen social cohesion.
Digital Youth Network
The DYN provides young Jordanians between with the means, tools, skills, and knowledge to meaningfully engage in digital contributions to peace in safe, positive, and responsible ways.
Joint Action Plans
Developed by alliances within and across local communities, Joint Action Plans promote common objectives through community based activities, digital campaigns, awareness campaigns, and capacity building workshops for women and youth.
Website
The Meshkat Community website aggregates content promoting social cohesion in the MENA region, and creates a digital hub for people to share their content, observations, and reflections on effective responses to harmful online narratives.

Social Media
Meshkat Community creates, curates and shares content consistent with the objectives of Meshkat Community through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to inspire online citizens to promote social inclusion and challenge hate.

Settlement 2.0 & 3.0 Reports and resources
Together, Settlement 2.0 and 3.0 provide a strategy for a brighter future for the sector that prioritizes empowering newcomers to be agents in their own settlement journey and offers actionable steps to build the overall capacity of the sector to embrace innovation towards more successfully and sustainably supporting newcomers over time.
Settlement 3.0
Innovations in our DNA (Full report)
Learning from the factors created by the COVID-19 pandemic and settlement experiences across regions, Settlement 3.0 explored how innovation and tech can best support newcomers in their settlement journey from pre-arrival to full and meaningful integration.
Innovations in our DNA (Executive Summary)
Learning from the factors created by the COVID-19 pandemic and settlement experiences across regions, Settlement 3.0 explored how innovation and tech can best support newcomers in their settlement journey from pre-arrival to full and meaningful integration.
Settlement 2.0
Innovations in our DNA (Full report)
The Settlement 2.0 Project strives to understand how the settlement sector can embrace tech and innovation in service delivery and strategic principles. Take a look at PeaceGeeks’ final recommendations.
Innovations in our DNA (Summary)
As the immigrant and refugee-serving sector has gone #suddenlyremote during COVID-19, take a look at our Settlement 2.0 conversation starter on innovation and design to ensure positive newcomer settlement outcomes.
Community consultations report
This report outlines the second phase of the Settlement 2.0 project, undertaken in partnership between SFU Public Square and PeaceGeeks Society.
Situational analysis
This report provides a snapshot of the current state of the technological and innovative capacities of the immigrant and refugee-serving sector in Canada.