Cyberbullying is a recent phenomenon that has significantly spread with the increasing use of Internet and social networks, especially amongst teens and children. Although it is a massive phenomenon, in many countries it isn’t even considered as a crime, and yet it can ruin a life, a career, a future. Thus, cyberbullying is an underestimated phenomenon. Harmful bullying behaviour can include posting rumours about a person, threats, sexual remarks, disclose victims' personal information, or pejorative labels, and lately the attempts of terrorist recruitment. In many cases, it has aggravated the problems of exclusion, depression, and in worst scenarios caused suicide. The topic is of extreme importance since bullying is hard to trace, characterized by difficulties in keeping track of evidences, while the victims are silent about the problems faced and their feelings. Most schools and parents are aware of the problem, but are unable to intervene, because of the lack of knowledge and tools on how to handle cyberbullying. FACE – Fighting Against Cyberbullying & Exclusion main goal is to combat the social effects of cyberbullying by developing materials, tools and methodologies targeted to youth workers that will help fostering civic competences and values and promoting active participation and civic values amongst students and pupils. In order to reach these goals, FACE will: 1. Form a multidisciplinary group of experts who will develop the e-handbook FACE Art Strategies (FACE AS), including an innovative methodology about how to prevent cyberbullying using visual and street arts, filmmaking, drama strategies & social media campaigns; 2. Create guidelines for parents concerning cyberbullying: how to prevent it, how to deal with violated children and offenders, etc. 3. Elaborate recommendations for local authorities, civil society organizations, universities and other stakeholders so that leaders in both public and private spheres assist in ensuring Cyber Abuse is clearly defined and illegal in the eyes of the law, with proportionate legal consequences. 4. Engage 18 youth workers (2 from each partner country) in an intensive training about how to implement the mentioned developed methodologies with teens, so that they will then become multipliers of these strategies within their communities. 5. Propel awareness raising processes about cyberbullying, led by youth workers with 500 thru 1000 teens aged 10 to 17 years old, who will develop their own projects and vademecums about cyberbullying using strategically filmmaking, drama, visual and street arts and/or an own social media campaign. 6. Launch an international contest for groups of teens and youth workers of each partner country for the development of the project, which will eventually select three winner projects, to be presented in an official and international closing event. 7. Create an online platform with the objective of presenting and disseminating the FACE’s project results and materials, which will be available for free and unlimited download. Additionally, create a network mapping of local and international stakeholders working on the topic of cyberbullying and a space for the exchange of good practices. 8. Disseminate the projects outputs and results. FACE project will contribute to foster civic competences and values by promoting active participation, critical thinking, tolerance and the respect of human rights, as it will be reflected in the vademecums created by teens and youth workers. Only within this pilot project, by training 18 youth workers who will be provided with tools and methodologies to work with pupils on cyberbullying, at least 1000 other pupils, parents and local, regional and international stakeholders will become multipliers of this project outputs, ideas and methodology. This will ensure the long-term sustainability of the project.
Cyberbullying is a recent phenomenon that has significantly spread with the increasing use of Internet and social networks, especially amongst teens and children. With the COVID19 outbreak and the shift to a more digitalised world, this phenomenon has even increased. Although it is a massive phenomenon, it is extremely underestimated and in many countries it isn’t even considered a crime. FACE – Fighting Against Cyberbullying & Exclusion main goal is to combat the social effects of cyberbullying by developing innovative and creative materials, tools and methodologies that will help to foster civic competencies and values and to promote active participation, tolerance and the respect of human rights. The FACE consortium has managed to reach its goals throughout the implementation of different activities and the production of different tools targeting different audiences. Particularly, important to be mentioned are the following: - The e-handbook FACE Art Strategies (FACE AS), including an innovative methodology about how to prevent cyberbullying using visual and street arts, filmmaking, drama strategies & social media campaigns. This tool targeted youth workers, educators, teachers and whoever wants to learn more on new methodologies tackling the issue of cyberbullying; - The Guidelines for parents concerning cyberbullying (how to prevent it, how to deal with violated children and offenders, etc.); - The Recommendations for local authorities, civil society organizations, universities and other stakeholders; - The Oonion Online Platform which is the main webpage for the FACE Project and it has been used throughout the whole duration of the project to present and disseminate the FACE’s project results and materials. Additionally to the e-documents produced, the project has managed also to spread the knowledge throughout several events and meetings: - An intensive 7-day training targeting 18 youth workers about how to implement the mentioned developed methodologies with teens was implemented; - Activities with schools, students and pupils organised by the YW were organised in order to raise awareness about cyberbullying and make participants their own visual product to sensitise peers about the issue. These activities reached more than 900 people; - Several Local Events were organised in the countries targeted by the project. Despite the COVID19 outbreak, these events managed to reach more than 220 people.