HIT campaigning at Artspace 4 London

Between 2018 and 2020, Rinova worked closely with Hope for Children in Cyprus, locally in London with Collage Arts and with an international group of partners on the HIT – ‘Hate Interrupter Teams’- project. Financed by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship (REC) programme. HIT saw teams of young people, mainly aged between 14-19, working in task teams, supported by teachers and youth workers, local stakeholders, celebrities and other ‘opinion formers’ to counteract hate speech and behaviour towards migrants through the use of a variety of creative campaigning activities in London, Berlin, Rome and Barcelona as well as across Cyprus, Greece and in Bulgaria. HIT has been singled out by the REC programme as a case study in good practice.

We were keen to build on this area of our work and, as a result, we are delighted to announce that in 2021 we were awarded two new projects in related fields, YCreate and FAKE. Both are designed to empower young people to counteract hate speech and fake news phenomena, which have been aggravated in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The YCreate partnership met in Rome this October for 2 days of intensive work to develop the project.

Firstly, we have #YCreate Voices for respect, celebrating difference and tackling hate – which sees us join forces again with our long-standing partner, Collage Arts, in a new, 2-year Erasmus+ Youth project managed by the British Council. YCreate also brings together community arts and cultural sector grassroots organisations, non-formal education practitioners, and young creatives in the Netherlands, Greece, Cyprus and Italy to develop new participatory youth peer mentoring and learning methods on issues of counteracting hate speech and misinformation through cultural practice in youth work settings. The partners are Rinova Ltd and Collage Arts (UK); Rozet (NL); MuLab (IT); The Smile of the Child (EL) and ”Hope For Children” CRC Policy Center (CY).

As well as HIT, YCreate builds on the #CREUS (also Erasmus+ funded), project, which we also implemented with Collage Arts. CREUS focused on arts’ based learning in ‘unconventional’ spaces through youth empowerment and peer mentoring. CREUS was awarded ‘best practice’ status by the UK Erasmus+ National Agency and has also been singled out by the EU as a ‘best of best practices’ project for a study into social inclusion and education.

Secondly, we are participating in #FAKE Let’s Fight through Awareness Knowledge and Education. FAKE has, at its core, the development of creative digital learning tools to be used by trainers and youth. They will be working together in the co-design and co-production of innovative practices to tackle disinformation and misinformation, particularly emerging forms of online hate and racism associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. FAKE is also funded by Erasmus+, and here Rinova is working together with organisations in other four European countries – Eurocircle in Marseille, France, CIOFS and Codemotion (both from Italy); LESTU (Lithuania) and Metropolisnet, a European network based in Berlin. Over the next two years, the consortium will develop a trainer resources pack, with up to date learning material on digital practice and media literacy; a digital playground allowing for co-design and co-production of digital visual novels; and an online Hackaton.

If you are interested in these areas and would like to know more, please contact Sofia Leitão at Rinova on s.leitao@rinova.co.uk. You can also follow the progress of the project on Rinova’s social media channels, as well as the project websites.

 

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.