The Council of Europe's No Hate Speech and Co-operation Unit are co-organising with CEJI (A Jewish contribution to an inclusive Europe) an online workshop to help activists develop human rights narratives to counter antisemitic hate speech. The workshop will be held on the mornings of 25-26-27 May.

Background

Antisemitic hate speech has always been prevalent on social media platforms, but the COVID-19 pandemic combined with the spread of old and new conspiracy theories has seen an increase in online hate. There is no doubt that antisemitism online needs to be countered, but what if instead of simply countering it, we could provide a more appealing alternative?

The WE CAN workshop on building human rights narratives aims to help participants develop positive messages in light of antisemitism by walking them through each step of creating a campaign, from crafting a human rights message to creating the visuals with the help of a professional designer – all this over a three half-day intensive workshop.

Learning objectives and outcomes

This workshop will allow you to

• Develop an understanding of antisemitic hate speech
• Gain knowledge on how human rights-based narratives can be effective in tackling hate speech
• Craft your own human rights-based narrative
• Turn your ideas into beautiful visuals with the help of a graphic designer
• Prepare a campaign in detail and run if following the workshop over the month of June

Workshop details

The workshop will take place over three mornings of the 25,26 and 27 May, with preliminary activities and/or homework to follow – make sure you reserve at least an hour in the afternoon to catch up on the materials. Click here to register!

Please note that this workshop is particularly intensive. As you will be working in groups and each day builds on the previous, it is important that you are able to attend all three sessions between 9 and 12:30. By applying via the registration form, you commit to be there for each session – if you are not available for one of the mornings, we encourage you to apply for another upcoming thematic workshop that might better suit your agenda.

Agenda

The first day will focus on what we need to address: antisemitism online, looking at various definitions and our own personal experiences.

The second day will focus on the values we stand for, namely human rights, discussing which human rights can work the best in face of hate speech and how we can create our own human-right based messages.

The third day will focus on putting all this into practice, where we will start working on the campaign plan and work with designers to help create the online messages.

A detailed agenda will be sent to confirmed participants before the workshop starts.

After the workshop

The workshop doesn’t end with the last day of training: having completed the three days, you and your team members will have roughly one week to complete your campaign plan and move to the phase. June will be dedicated to sharing your campaign materials online, so altogether we can altogether make an effort to replace antisemitic hate speech with human rights-based narratives in some of the corners of the internet!

Throughout June, we will keep in touch to support you where needed, to share your posts and to hear from you on how your campaign materials perform.

Registration

Sounds interesting? Click here to fill out the registration form that will remain open until the 9^th May.

Please note that registration does not mean automatic enrolment – we will send an email confirmation to selected participants after the registration closes.