“NEw CHapter" is a 15-month and 4-country (Greece, Italy, Denmark, UK) project that aims to provide s Why we need a NEw CHapter?
It is undoubtful that we live in a European Union that is in the middle of a migrant crisis, sulky economic growth and growing disillusionment. 2015 was marked by the aftermath of terrorist attacks attributed to the Islamic State and by the arrival of greater numbers of asylum seekers and migrants from Muslim countries. Evidence suggests that Member States that have seen the highest numbers of arr
ivals are the most likely to face racist and xenophobic incidents (FRA 2016 Report). Another worrying aspect is the rise of hate crime and online hate speech. While significant actions were taken in an EU level for tackling these issues statistics show that further action needs to be taken. In a survey that was conducted among young people 83% of them stated that they have encountered hate speech online, while 2/5 have personally felt attacked or threatened (survey on hate speech, 2015,CoE). The landscape becomes even darker regarding incidents of racist violence. Based on the UNHCR annual report about incidents of racist violence in Greece in 2015, 225 incidents have been reported. With these in mind, it is crucial for different stakeholders that work with youth to come together and have a holistic approach to tackle discrimination, xenophobia, hate speech, racism and what derives from them. Coming together against Hate!
“NEw CHapter: Network of Cooperation against Hate” is a 15-month and 4-country (Greece, Italy, Denmark and UK) project that aims to provide space and support for cross sectoral cooperation of organizations and institutions that work with young people in formal/non formal education on combating hate speech and promote human rights education (HRE). More specifically, NEw CHapter will bring together Youth NGOs, an international network, 2 schools, a counseling body and a municipality in order to strengthen their capacities in international cooperation and develop competences on identifying and combating the different forms of hate speech and discrimination and promote the human rights education. NEw Chapter’s objectives are:
•to encourage and strengthen transnational cooperation among the participating organizations and support their staff’s capacity building on how to tackle hate speech, bullying and discrimination through joint training with the use of non formal and formal education methodologies
•to explore and share experiences, tools and methods among the partners in order for both direct participants and institutions to get new insights and knowledge on HRE, and gain social, intercultural,critical thinking competences for a more inclusive education, training and youth field
•to create a cross sectoral sustainable network of inclusion ambassadors that will spread the ideas of “No Hate Speech Movement” on organizational and community levels through local and online activities to reach a wider audience supporting the promotion of inclusive and peaceful societies
•to generate synergies and partnerships between the participating organizations and support the exchange of effective methods, opportunities and challenges in local and European youth work in reaching out to marginalized young people and in preventing racism and intolerance among local youth
And how we plan to do this? The participants of the project are people from each partner organization that work with youth from different sectors such as youth workers and leaders, ngo members, teachers, educators, municipal staff and policy makers. NEw CHapter has 2 transnational meetings and a staff training (28 participants, 4 per each partner organization) in Greece and local activities in each partner country. Due to the complicated nature of the issues that the project deals with, such as the combat of hate speech, discrimination, segregation among youth and the reaching out and social inclusion of marginalised youth we will apply a variety of methodologies throughout the ex*****on of NEw CHapter for its successful implementation : non formal and informal learning, cross-sectoral synergy, networking, best practice knowledge management methodology, creative and critical thinking and human rights education methodology. Our project’s has intangible results such as: participants’ increased knowledge, capacities and skills development on the themes of the project, creation of cross-sectoral network of inclusion multipliers, bridging of public-private sector with the creation of partnerships between stakeholders of youth work, education and local authorities. The tangible results of NEw CHapter are a handbook of cross-sectoral good practices against hate speech, discrimination, violence among youth and an open-learning platform, which will be accessible from public. By implementing this project, we expect to have a positive impact in a local and European level by raising awareness, and by bringing together different key stakeholders to share effective mechanisms on how to tackle the rise of hate speech, violence and discrimination between youngsters and reach out to marginalised young people. Partners:
Greece:
Youthnet Hellas
High School of Gouves
Common Benefit Enterprise of Services of Neapolis‐Sykies (KEYNS)
10th Primary school of Sykies
Denmark:
Youth Social Rights Network
UK:
MBM Training and Development Center (MBM TDC)
Italy:
CENTRO PER LO SVILUPPO CREATIVO “DANILO DOLCI”
