Description
The project is intended to develop and popularise tools to counteract hate speech and discrimination towards minorities in Gdańsk, based on spoken history. We will invite representatives of the minorities to participate in workshops and to cooperate in developing tools concerning spoken history and memory that should increase empowerment, sense of activity and visibility of the minorities in the city. Based on gathered spoken histories, city routes will be prepared where persons from discriminated minority groups will describe their experiences of human rights abuse and their strategies to preserve their identity. We will use interviews and marks of presence, new media and alternative tourism, interesting publications as methods to disseminate these tools. Polish partner organisation is obliged to compile city routes, organise a training for guides and tours around Gdansk and to cooperate in other activities, eg. project promotion. Partner organisation from Norway is obliged to share good practicies in storytelling, lead a workshop for project leader and support an evaluation of the project.
Summary of project results
"Over 30,000 residents of the Pomeranian voivodship declared membership of ethnic minority groups. These groups are most frequently exposed to hate speech and physical violence - setting mosques on fire, anti-Semitic inscriptions collected in the “Hate Speech"" publication (2014), and racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic slogans heard in the stadiums of Gdańsk (“Brown Paper, 2011-2012""). Other minority groups - such as LGBT persons - are exposed to hate speech in Gdańsk as well. The project purpose was to empower representatives of minorities living in Gdańsk by collecting “spoken stories"" in a storytelling evolution, and laying out trails of walks tying in with the experience of a given minority. The project allowed LGBT persons, women with life experience in many cultures, Jewish and Muslim community representatives, the Chinese, and people of the Kociewie region to tell stories of their identity and of discrimination-related experience. Related walk trails are a contribution to the process of promoting social and cultural diversity of the Pomeranian region. Workshops preparing participants to conduct interviews (120 hours) were delivered. Fifty-three conversations were held; 6 trails available in audio format on the project website and in the printed publication were designed. The second publication comprises articles concerning the city and its identity. Three walks were organised in Gdańsk (following the minorities' trail). The project closed with a conference, book promotion included. Workshops were attended by 83 individuals. Sixty-six persons were interviewed. Forty persons attended the conference. The City of Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences were the joint project partner responsible for delivering and consulting storytelling workshops. The other partner - the Institute of Urban Culture - was responsible for organising the conference, workshops and walks, for handling the recruitment process, and for project-related technical assistance."
Summary of bilateral results
"The project aimed to create tools to counteract hate speech and discrimination against minorities in Pomerania region. We decided to base these tools on notions of memory, oral history and storytelling. We invited individuals and groups coming from a variety of broadly defined cultural and social minorities to explore their oral history through narratives about everyday life in the city. Our Partner Oslo and Akeshus University College and prof. Heidi Dahlsveen gave us the tools and knowledge focused on methods of constructing narratives based on storytelling practice. That allowed us to conduct similar workshops with our participants in Gdańsk and create the pathways of five different minority groups based on their own stories. We wanted to try the new approach in antidiscrimination field allowing us to combine two methods we - as memebrs of Arteria Association use in everyday work: anti-discrimination education and culture animation to strengthen and empower voices of minorities in our local community. One of the results is the new product we have now in our Association. 4 members of Arteria after study visit and workshop with prof. Dahlsveen created the programme for our own storytelling workshop. We consulted every activity with prof. Dahlsveen and created the whole programme according to her notes. After using it in this project we plan to make some adjustments and continue to use it in our future projects with minority groups in Pomerania region especially women and LGBT groups. One of the main ongoing projects in Arteria (from 2010) is collecting oral histories of women working in Gdańsk’s Shipyard. Local LGBT group “Tolerado” was one of the most active group in our recent project and we plan to continue to work with them using oral history and storytelling methods as antidiscrimination tools. Participants of Polish version of the storytelling workshops, which took place during our recent project, work with minorities such as seniors, disabled people, ethnic groups and plan to use methods from our workshop in their work. We may also be working together with some of those organizations in the future. Methodological article about storytelling written by prof. Heidi Dahlsveen if free to download for everyone from our website. "