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 complemented 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.
Thanks to the project implementation, students of 40 secondary schools started regular community and educational activities addressed to their local communities for prevention of hate speech.
During the project implementation, c. 1,000 secondary schools students from the Lubelskie and Podkarpackie voivodships took part in community and educational activities designed for counteracting hate speech, using a virtual gamification platform developed for the project implementation.
Participating schools were awarded certificates “Hate Speech-Free Class”. Students participated in classes on the project theme, in an urban game and in a panel summarizing the project implementation.
The project beneficiaries were secondary schools students from the Lubelskie and Podkarpackie voivodships.