September caught us preparing to deliver a Training on Tackling Hate Speech and Developing Countering Initiatives, intended for young people from Kratovo. The training was held on September 20th and included 20 volunteers and students from the high-school in Kratovo.

The training focused predominantly on how to develop counter initiatives, as well as on how to react and tackle hate speech, and provided a forum for discussion between participants about hate speech, hate crime and freedom of speech. The participants were invited to think and discuss about consequences and effects of hate speech and to learn about different tools that can be used by anyone to identify and to tackle hate speech.

October was dedicated to planning and implementing the 7th No Hate School. It has become a beautiful tradition to have the school as a yearly event and to train volunteers, youth workers and educational practitioners from all around the country to identify and combat hate speech and hate crime.

The school was held between 15-19 of October 2018, in Krusevo. It gathered 19 activists and had the following components: understanding what hate speech and hate crime are, understanding the legal basis of addressing hate speech and hate crime, exploring ways in which counter-narratives can be used to tackle hate speech and preparing local actions that will be implemented in the months following the training.

Among the confirmed follow-up activities we mention a 2-day training at the end of October in the SABA high-school in Shtip, held by one of the participants, and an info-day on the 12th of November in the high-school in Strumica.

The project team is looking forward to support the local initiatives and to ensure that every year we build more and more multipliers who will fight hate speech and hate crime.

More photos from the event can be found here.

The activities are organised by Center for Intercultural Dialogue with the support of the OSCE Mission to Skopje.