Description
Project proposed by the Grodzki Theatre (leader) and 2 partners: Local Sociotherapy Centre and Barnaheill - Save the Children, Iceland. The project will be implemented in the Bielsko Biała region from February 3, 2014 till April 30, 2016. The target group involves individuals aged 13-25. This is a pilot voluntary project in a sociotherapy centre where 40 clients of the centre with behavioural and socialisation issues will work together with 40 volunteers to improve social skills and become volunteers themselves. This will equip them to get actively involved in their neighbourhoods. They will become role models as active citizens demonstrating responsibility, awareness, and involvement for the benefit of their communities. In parallel, the Icelandic partner will work with trained volunteers to review Polish websites to diagnose the hate speech problem. It will publish a report and offer a model based on experience in Iceland for combating hate speech and its consequences in the Polish online world.
Summary of project results
"According to the research conducted in Bielsko Biała (available through an Interactive Map of Social Problems), the most important problems of young inhabitants of Bielso Biała are juvenile delinquency, offences and alcoholism. The local welfare institutions have confirmed the results of the research. That is why an Interdisciplinary Team for Counteracting Domestic Violence was set up to work on, among other things, effective combating violence and on rehabilitation of children and youth. The task of the Team is to support the youth at risk and for some years now, the member organizations and institutions use an individualized approach to implementing care and social rehabilitation processes. The aim of the project was to increase the social involvement of young people at risk of social exclusion through getting them involved in volunteer activities for their own community. Thanks to the project implementation, 40 young people participating in the activities of the Youth Sociotherapy Centre, cooperating with their peers can also participate in social initiatives initiated by the Grodzki Theatre and social welfare institutions. The project enabled conducting a cycle of training sessions for participating volunteers and young people from the Youth Sociotherapy Centre. Each participant followed an Individual Volunteer Programme. 6 study visits were organized. Almost 250 people participated in 2 Voluntary Work Galas. A brochure on combating hate speech was published. The beneficiaries of the project implementation were young people exposed to the risk of social exclusion, aged 13-35, from Bielsko-Biała. Barnaheill Save the Children Iceland, the project partner, conducted the training for volunteers and prepared the publication on combating hate speech. The other partner was the Youth Sociotherapy Centre in Bielsko-Biała. The Centre was responsible for recruiting the participants and for their taking part in the social activities organized together with the volunteers from the Association."
Summary of bilateral results
By implementing the project with a partner from Iceland the project team and the participants improved their knowledge about ways of fighting online hate speech. A group of 10 volunteers took part in a video training on hate speech. Each of them received a resource package. The partner completed a desk research of Polish websites and developed a publication about hate speech; it was printed and distributed among education institutions and other children and youth organisations. The partner was keen on sharing its experience with us, also in areas beyond the scope of the project: children's rights, legal situation in Europe, operation of helplines. Mutual learning was a vital part of the project and it was especially captivating in the area of cultural differences, files and records, financial reporting and public trust.