From November 3 to 21 there was held a training course in Rustavi International Scout Centre in Georgia under the name “Hate is Not Our Fate”. 23 participants from 8 countries were participating in the project, namely Czech Republic, Georgia, Armenia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Germany, France and Slovakia.
The project was financed by Erasmus+. It was designed to give young people the opportunity of becoming young activists of No Hate Speech, to reflect upon activities planned in frame of project and get experience through participation and interactive learning approaches.
During the whole project participants had an opportunity to identify, clarify and express their own beliefs and values and to confront them with others in a safe working environment considering local needs and freedom of thoughts.
The project was aimed at providing youth leaders and youth workers with the competences to interpret and understand the hate speech as a form of violence and to work systematically in their communities.
The objectives of the training course were the following
- To explore the concepts of hate and violence in all their forms.
- To understand better how we are influenced by and how we are involved in hate and violence in our everyday life.
- To reflect on how hate and violence affects the communities in which our youth organizations are based.
- To reflect on how hate and violence impacts Europe and young people’s sense of being European.
- To open the topic of possible strategies and activities combating hate and violence.
The participants had a lot of indoor and outdoor activities during the projects. A lot of discussions and seminars were held during the sessions on the topic of the project. A day was devoted to street action, which took place Tbilisi. The participants organized a flash mob in front of Tbilisi State University about antifascism.
Besides thematic activities participants had a lot of fun, interesting events such as intercultural evenings and city tours.
As a result, the participants became able to fight against, prevent and oppose hate speech and its impacts on the society.
This was the first part of the project and the second part will take place Brno, Czech Republic from 23 Feb. to 2 March.