A study prepared by the University of Warsaw Centre for Research on Prejudice shows that Poles are ready to accept hate speech directed at the LGBT people, Roma, Muslims ad Jews. Young people who use the Internet more often than the adults are also more often exposed to it.
In the Lubelskie and Podkarpacke voivodships, there are no specialized institutions to deal with hate speech. The research conducted by the Association in 6 schools in Lublin in February 2014, shows that the students know neither institutions nor campaigns that would work on this issue.
The project complements Polish and European initiatives that address counteracting hate speech, including the campaign run by the Youth Department of the Council of Europe whose aim is to create an online network of activists.
The aim of the project was to minimize hate speech on the Internet among students of secondary schools in the Lubelskie and Podkarpacke voivodships.
Students of 20 secondary schools, in which the program “School free from violence” was implemented, undertook educational activities addressed to their peers for prevention of hate speech.
During the project implementation, scenarios for activities were designed and a decision-making game was created for counteracting hate speech.
The project beneficiaries were c. 1,000 secondary schools students from the Lubelskie and Podkarpackie voivodships. Several teachers from each of the participating schools took part in training sessions on how to work with young people on counteracting hate speech.
The project partner was MyFolio.co, which provided knowledge necessary for creating internet educational tools.