Step forward mobility Youth leaders against hate speech

International Youth Exchange Step forward mobility Youth leaders against hate speech KA1 Youth Mobility Project financed by the National Agency in Ireland Leargas under the European Union Program Erasmus+. Participating countries: Ireland, Lithuania, Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Georgia, Albania.  Hosting and coordinating organisation- Eurobug.

Event took place in Reggio Calabria, Italy  on 2nd – 9th of September, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This exchange was one of the youth lead exchanges, where I could see the amazing job what youn and very potentional young people can do. In this exhange we touched a topic about hate speech online and ofline, we had an amazing “Free Hugs” activity with local people in a beautiful Reggio Calabria and made people more aware and interested about topic about Hate speech, which is really close to my activistic heart.

Special thanks: ‘Youth leaders against hate speech’ was a collaborative work, therefore I want to thank our Partner Organizations for their commitments during the planning, implementation and evaluation of this project. I also want to extend special thanks to Kelvin Akpaloo, Nadja Veraldi, Maryna Bohuslavska, Antonio Spadaro and others  who took a lot of responsibilities about teaching young people about hate speech  . Thank you!

Eurobug Director,

Aiste Slajute

The main aim

To address hate speech online and offline and to create a group of youth leaders that will be able to challenge it.

The main objectives were:

• To create a welcoming environment where participants can dive into learning about hate speech online and offline.
• To analyse the process of digitalisation and digital divide in today’s society
• To Define the main concepts and principles of online citizenship, human rights online and No Hate Speech Movement.

 

As a result of taking part in this international youth exchange participants gained the following skills, knowledge and attitudes:

 

• Gained awareness of the positive and negative use of social media;
• Acquired an understanding of digitalisation and digital divide today’s society;
• Learned about the No Hate Speech Movement;
• Captured the core principles about the online citizenship;
• Defined the concept of Human Rights online;
• Gained the ability to communicate and socialise with people from different cultural backgrounds;
• Improved English skills;
• Improved skills of public speaking and delivering presentations;
• Learned how to plan and implement non-formal education activities in local communities;
• Developed a capacity to identify and to set personal learning goals;
• Improved ability to reflect and to follow personal learning process;
• Acquired skills of activity planning and time management;
• Learned to take responsibility and carry out tasks;
• Developed an ability to approach problems and challenges in creative ways;
• Improved a sense of confidence and raising self-esteem;
• Learned about using social media not only for maintaining communications, but also for advocating on particular issues. 

PARTICIPATING ORGANISATIONS

IRELAND –Eurobug 🇮🇪

Eurobug’ is an Irish NGO that stands for diversity and social inclusion of ethnic minority youth. We organise local, national and international projects with and for young people;and training courses for youth and community workers in Ireland and Europe

Project coordinator and Youth Worker: Aiste Slajute

Youth Leader: Kelvin Akpaloo

LITHUANIA – Eurobug Lithuania 🇱🇹

Eurobug Lithuania is Lithuanias NGO that works with young people from different backgrounds in different Lithuanias towns and cities trough non-formal education.

Youth Worker:  Maryna Bohuslavska

SPAIN – Europimpulse 🇪🇸

EuropeImpulse was born from the need to provide training for the civil society on the cooperation, European funding, Education, Social Innovation, Culture and Sustainable development. EuropeImpulse is a Spanish project developed through two basic areas: 1. Europimpuls Training: development of learning methodologies, resources and tools (online and off-line) about European project engineering and 2. Europimpulse Network: promotion of spaces for the exchange of experiences, collaboration and incubation of innovative projects

ITALY -APICE – Agenzia di Promozione Integrata per i Cittadini in Europa 🇮🇹

Youth Leader:
Nadja Veraldi

Main aim is to promote active European citizenship between young people.

Ukraine – European Youth Community (EYC) 🇺🇦

European Youth Community (EYC) is a non-profit, non-governmental youth organization established in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine in 2015 with the main objective to promote mobility of young people and youth development through fostering active participation of its citizens in civil society.

Georgia – Human Rights association 🇬🇪

Youth Leader:
Tako Tumanishvili

The mission of the Association is to support young people, initiative groups and youth organizations, interested and involved in Human Rights issues in Georgia and in the future in Caucasus region and Eastern European countries, in communication and partnership building processes.