Published: 10 April 2012
Region: Europe
The Council of Europe Youth Department is launching a new flagship project to span over 2012 and 2013: ‘Young People Combating Hate Speech Online’.
The project aims to combat racism and discrimination by equipping young people and youth organisations with the competences necessary to recognise and act against their presence online.
Centred around a training course and an online campaign, the project places young people and youth organisations at the core of action and initiative. The campaign will have an European dimension, but it is expected to have national and regional focus, therefore increasing the chances for real impact as racist and discriminatory content and speech is often distributed in local languages. The campaign should therefore ensure that the voices, experiences and concerns expressed at local and regional level have visibility and a role in shaping the European youth policy agenda.
Essential to the campaign and the project is the training of online activists and bloggers that will be the core group in shaping and carrying out this campaign. The community of online activists gathered by the training course should shape and support the online campaign along with the other different features of the project.
The first training course is taking place in the European Youth Centre Budapest between 20-27 May 2012 and the application process is now open. More information is also available here. The deadline for applications is 19 April 2012.