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Description
Far right rhetoric, hate speech and attribution of negative traits to the other have become common in Bulgaria for years. They have permanently established themselves in the Bulgarian political and media environment. The only thing that changes is the intensity of use towards different affected groups. At the same time public policies to counteract hate speech are either non-existent or have limited effect. A 2018 survey of public attitudes towards hate speech identified the issue: the group of teachers is one of the two communities who are most challenged to define the meaning and scope of hate speech. What is more, teachers do not uphold tolerance as a value and they shift the responsibility for educating to protect human rights to the children’s parents. Against such backdrop, our project is a possible way and solution offering to invest in teachers’ knowledge and skills based on developing further and upgrading a successful youth project of 2015, financed by the NGO Programme. Our goal is to create online and offline resources targeted at a new audience to support human rights education and promote acceptance of differences and the diversity of people and images in our society in the long run. A practical solution might be the development and endorsement by the Ministry of Education and Science of qualification credit courses for teachers as well as the opening up of the existing Pl@tform to a new professional community working directly with children and young people aged up to 29. And in order not to succeed just partially, we will mix teacher training with an information campaign, training of young volunteers and promotion of local youth initiatives for human rights protection. The target group of the pilot intervention are the teachers from four districts with a predominantly ethnic minority population and low economic indicators: Dobrich, Shoumen, Vratsa and Montana where hate speech is part of life.
Summary of project results
The "Toler@nce platform 2.0" project created online and offline human rights training resources (HR) aimed at a new audience - pedagogical specialists from the formal education system and professional communities working directly with children and youth up to 29 years of age. According to the project, study programs were developed, approved and tested for increasing the qualification of pedagogical specialists; two board games for human rights education were developed - Tolerado and Barabar. 80 teachers from two regions of the country, where there are large minority groups (Roma and Turks) and an unfavorable economic situation/high unemployment, and hence aggravated social relations, in places even segregation and discriminatory practices, gained access to educational resources that give a practical solution to the problem of overcoming negative attitudes towards seemingly different people. Over 1,800 children and young people participated in sessions, presentations and play situations, breaking stereotypes and giving food for thought about what divides us or brings us together. Children and youth representing the end-user group were recruited as volunteers/multiplayers and participated in various field initiatives.