«No Hate» training course in Oslo, Norway 06-10.02.2017

The training course we attended was intended for youth workers who would like to learn more about hate speech online. The main aim of the training course was to increase the awareness about the No Hate Speech Movement and to obtain the tools to address the issue of hate speech and to wotk with young people to conteract hate speech online.

During the training course we got a concrete understanding of what hate speech is. Being aligned with hate crime in some European countries, hate speech is a verbal, visual or written concept used to spread hate, threats and incite violence against a person or a group of people. Based on the discrimination and inequality hate speech has become increasingly present in the public, especially on the Internet. As a result, No Hate Speech Movement has been created in order to attract the attention to such phenomena and decrease its presence in the society.
Since young people are some of the most active users of new technology and social media, they are concerned as both agents and victims of online hate speech and youth workers have the possibility to help resolving this issue through direct contact with them. With a focus on non-formal education we received an amazing tool of Bookmarks that has a great selection of the workshops with detailed description of each of them and that can be facilitated for a group of people in order to make them explore and reflect on the problems that cause hate speech, as well as learn how to deal with it.

On one of the days we also visited the 22. July centre in Oslo that is an educational center made in the memory of the Norwegian terror that happened in 2013. It is impressive how out of a such event Norwegians have built a place for remembering the past but also keeping learning out from it.

One of the key points of the training course was the fact how we as individuals and society in general accept one’s behavior that is intolerant or even against human rights. Acceptance, therefore, is the first step towards giving the space for the crime to happen. It is in fact our responsibility to prevent the hate speech from occurring. As a conclusion of the project each of the participants had to come up with an idea for the follow-up event on the topic of No Hate Speech Movement. We decided to keep it simple and feasible and use the advantages of our working places. Therefore, we came up with an idea to integrate a series of No Hate lessons into the school curriculum in the frames of the topic Human and Society and to facilitate No Hate workshops for the groups of youth with an aim to raise students’ awareness about hate speech online as well as to make the Internet friendlier and safer place. For these purposes we are going to use the tools from Bookmarks and the official web page of the movement – http://www.nohatespeechmovement.org.

We would suggest everyone who is connected to youth to attend similar training courses organized with a support of the Erasmus+ program, as they give the opportunity to increase your knowledge, bring new perceptions and views, obtain practical tools, expand the international network and make you grow as personality.

Presentation on Human Rights Education
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9KPZMN6LbdeRWY2b2wxTVRObXc/view?usp=sharing

Learning Diary of the participants with a detailed description of all day-by-day activities
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_vU2USjniweDdrLIrzah3nh6JRZKbHw4Cb1U2IT5v3s/edit?usp=sharing

Pictures from the training course
https://www.facebook.com/pg/stopphatprat/photos/?tab=album&album_id=602360773303626

Olga Lutška, Narva Kesklinna Gümnaasium, Estonia
Jekaterina Lukina, Tallinna Lastekodu, Estonia