From November 23rd to 30th, 2024, youth workers from five countries — Romania, Italy, France, Morocco, and Egypt — gathered in the beautiful city of Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, to participate in the training course "Critically Yours", part of the "No Hate Embassy" project coordinated by CoconutWork organisation. This inspiring mobility for youth workers aimed to combat hate speech and promote tolerance, inclusion, and diversity through non-formal education methods.
The training course tackled hate speech challenges, including the rise of hate speech, misinformation, xenophobia, and radicalization, which threaten social cohesion and democratic values. Youth workers are essential in addressing these challenges by empowering young people to think critically, resist hateful narratives, and advocate for inclusive and diverse communities.
Objectives and Goals
The project had several ambitious goals:- To foster inclusive narratives and challenge hateful stereotypes.
- To enhance resilience against harmful propaganda by promoting fact-checking and media literacy.
- To evaluate the online hate-speech realities in the participating countries.
- To strengthen critical thinking skills among youth, helping them detect and counter hateful narratives.
- To build participants’ digital advocacy skills for creating impactful online campaigns against hate speech.
Non-Formal Education Methods
The training course used interactive non-formal education methods to engage youth workers and encourage collaborative learning. Some methods included:
| Role-playing activities | to simulate real-life scenarios involving hate speech and critical responses |
| Group discussions and reflections | sharing experiences and analyzing the root causes of intolerance, hate speech and narratives |
| Workshops | fact-checking and identifying misinformation, discovering national realities, sharing personal experiences of dealing with hate speech |
| Creative activities | digital storytelling through content creation, fostering innovative approaches to counter-narratives, exploring the involvement of different stakeholders |
Activities and Highlights
Throughout the week, the youth workers engaged in a variety of dynamic activities, such as:- Ted Talks: Participants voluntarily shared their own experiences with hate speech and discussed their struggles and perspectives on deconstructing narratives.
- National Realities Check: Each national group assessed their country’s struggles with hate speech narratives and national statistics that will be used further within the following activities of No Hate Embassy.
- Hate Speech Mapping: Participants assessed the realities of hate speech in their countries, identifying key challenges and common stereotypes.
- Counter-Narrative Campaigns: Participants collaborated to design online campaigns addressing hate speech, which they will implement in their communities and worked together to create TikTok content to raise awareness on Hate Speech online.
- Cultural Exchange Evening: An intercultural event where participants shared their traditions, music, and cuisine, promoting cultural understanding and inclusion.
The "Critically Yours" training course was a truly transformative experience, successfully achieving its objectives of equipping youth workers with the knowledge and tools to combat hate speech. The participants developed their digital advocacy skills, critical thinking capabilities, and a commitment to becoming no-hate ambassadors in their communities.
The No Hate Embassy is an Erasmus+ KA2 Capacity-building project that emerges in a context of increasing hate speech, hate crimes and attacks on migrants and refugees, propaganda and violent xenophobia, as well as a rise in religious and political extremism and in terrorist attacks in Europe and its neighboring regions.
The project brings together six organizations from both sides of the Mediterranean to address these pressing issues by focusing on youth engagement and empowerment, working on intercultural dialogue and peace-building.
