Training course for Young Journalists and Bloggers “Vaccine against hate speech on media”
On 15th – 23rd June 2018, Youth Center “Perspektiva” organized training course of young journalists and bloggers “Vaccine against hate speech on media” in Durres, Albania. The activity gather 25 students of journalism, young bloggers and community activists from Albania, Lithuania , Kosovo (1244), FYROM, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey and the EU, who were interested to develop themselves in the area of creation of counter narratives to social stigmas and prejudices, acquire professional experience of media coverage in work with vulnerable groups and contribute to creation of positive narratives of intercultural youth communication at the national and regional levels.
The aim of the project was to strengthen capacity and skills of young bloggers and students of journalism in combating hate speech through counter narratives and raising public awareness about the needs of marginalized and vulnerable groups.
The objectives of the project were:
- To strengthen capacity of at least 25 young bloggers and students of journalism to challenge inter-ethnic prejudices and social stigmas through non-formal education, development of counter-narratives and work with representatives of vulnerable groups,
- To strengthen youth media cooperation by creating a network of young bloggers and students of journalism in the Western Balkans and linking it with the European network of the No Hate Speech Movement,
- To strengthen positive narratives of youth inter-ethnic cooperation in the Western Balkans and support inclusion of marginalized and vulnerable groups through production of youth-friendly media content by the participants.
The project provided young bloggers, activists and students of journalism with unique experiences of face-to-face communication with representatives of marginalized groups (such as, Roma, people with disability, LGBTQI and victims of domestic violence) and relevant NGOs. Stigmatization of those groups is widely spread across the Western Balkans and overall Europe, thus, making those interactions highly relevant for all participants. Through this experiences they had opportunity to conduct interviews and ask questions about the reality of vulnerable and marginalized group in Albania.
As part of attending the training course, participants produced a set of follow up activities in order to disseminate and share the knowledge acquired throughout the training course. Follow up were implemented in different forms, such as blog articles, videos, round tables, etc.
There were 3 round tables organized in Albania, Kosovo* and Serbia in the scope of the project. The round tables were focused in 3 main areas such as, defining hate speech online and offline based on Bookmarks manual, what are counter and alternative narratives based on We Can manual and short introduction on European Youth Foundation, since the project “Vaccine against hate speech on media” was supported financially by European Youth Foundation.
Videos from the Training Course:
