Over the past months, Hope For Children has engaged youth in activities to raise awareness of and prevent hate speech in the framework of our EU-funded project Hate Trackers Beyond Borders (HTBB). One of the groups of young activists, aged 14 to 18, created an animated video to present common examples of hate speech in order to demonstrate the uncomfortable situations it creates and urge people to stop it. We are proud of the young activists who have joined our quest to combat hate speech and are excited to share their journey in their own words. In the following paragraphs, Shah, Ibrahim, Ray, Erato, Ioanna, Sophia, Iolly, Ourania and Panikkes describe the development of the awareness raising video:
Hate speech is harmful, discriminating, and, sadly, still takes place in today’s day in age. It spreads quickly with advanced technology and remains accessible to anyone from anywhere.
Many times, when we think of hate speech, we think of it as something that comes from someone who wants to hurt us. However, sometimes even the people closest to us may harm us without even realizing it. Hate speech amongst family members is a frequent phenomenon, and this video aims to show how diminishing comments can hurt. It is important to remember that everyone has the freedom of speech, however, when it is used to abuse, or to express hate towards other individuals, it only causes stress and leaves people feeling targeted and vulnerable.
The video portrays a classic scenario of hate speech. In this case, the example used is a big family gathered for a family reunion during the holidays. However, there are no pleasant conversations; no one wants to catch up, and people start immediately complaining and attacking other family members based on prejudiced opinions and false accusations. No one is trying to fix or stop the situation. In the scenario, the family is shown passing judgement from one person to another, and instead of appropriately handling conflict, they strike back with unnecessary hurtful commentary. What can we extract from this? This is a group of people who are supposed to embrace each other’s differences, support each other and show their never-ending affection. Instead, they say hateful comments, which stops even the strongest families from truly connecting. After this scenario is presented in the brief animation, there is a transition in the video to a brief explanation of hate speech and a summary of individuals who are often targets of it. As our video ends, we provide the viewer with useful resources to visit to learn more about hate speech, such as the recently created WebApp and the Hate Trackers website.
This video was created with the help of many young individuals as a way to vividly highlight hate speech in everyday life. It is extremely important that people from a young age learn to be activists, considering significant issues, and use their voice to advocate for those who may not have the chance to do so themselves. To learn more about the Hate Trackers project, visit the WebApp, which is a platform that contains lots of interesting information about hate speech, available in English and Greek.
To watch the whole video please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jll7f1RbGHE