Tarnów used to be one of the most important centres of Jewish culture in the region - until World War II, 45 per cent of the town’s population were Jewish. Throughout the post-war period, the Tarnów inhabitants blocked out the cultural heritage of the Jews and their knowledge of their Jewish neighbours’ history is patchy. A survey conducted by the Committee showed that over 60 per cent of students never participated in a lesson devoted to the culture and history of Jews. Only 15 per cent of young people could name famous Jews from Tarnów. Majority of the respondents know nothing about the role of Jews in the town history. Young people learn about ethnic and religious minorities mainly from the Internet (82 per cent). A report of the Foundation “The local knowledge” shows that 65 per cent of posts to the Internet fora related to Jews contains hate speech and hostile language (raportmniejszości.pl). What is more, more often than other groups, young people encounter hate speech in private conversations (40 per cent). 76 per cent of respondents confirmed that they told racist anecdotes and wrote racist slogans. We can see anti-Semitic and football fans’ slogans on the town buildings.
The aim of the project was to make young people in Tarnów sensitive to anti-Semitism, discrimination and intolerance towards other cultures. Young project participants created an interactive map to enable marking sites where hate speech in writing appeared. 15 graffiti with hostile language were removed.
The project implementation included training for 21 young volunteers to prepare them for future activities. 29 talks “Let’s talk about tolerance” were organised in schools as well as 34 lessons on “There was once a town” for 432 students. A music workshop, a concert of Jewish music and a cultural event “Jewish Street” were organized for Tarnów residents for tourists. A mural with antidiscrimination message was painted. An exhibition “Forgotten archives” was shown in 20 schools and in cultural and educational institutions. 20 walks for 404 participants were organized in the form an urban game.
Both students and teachers from Tarnów were beneficiaries of the project implementation.
HL-Sentere, the Norwegan partner, conducted a series of seminars on developing the attitude of tolerance for student of pedagogy. The AntySchematy2 Foundation helped reaching the project beneficiaries.