Promoting democracy, teaching human rights and preventing extremism are of vital importance for a free society and a Europe of open borders. Although these topics should be considered from a national viewpoint, they cannot be adequately shaped using this perspective alone. A European-wide network of populist and right-wing extremists is becoming increasingly more professional as an international anti-multilateral movement. Right and extreme right-wing groups are infiltrating youth groups, communicating with these young people in their own language and genres, and using areas close to borders as places of refuge. Hate speech and fake news are having a huge influence on public opinion – from online outlets to political decision making. Young people with low levels of education and participation as well as poor job prospects are particularly vulnerable to these populist campaigns. They are often not capable of using facts to form their own opinion. So far, there have been virtually no cross-border, multilateral youth education initiatives that deal with, and proactively counter, transregional forms of antidemocratic manifestations. Transnational, non-formal training courses aimed at young people with fewer opportunities are scarce and widely untested. This project aims to alter the current status quo. It is therefore crucial that youth work providers and specialists in this area cooperate across borders and develop novel concepts and formats for non-formal education. These offers must be applicable to young people, both locally and at a transnational level. The central idea is to found a transnational office called “respect!” where youth workers and young people can actively report any episodes to agitate or incite hate. They will receive feedback from qualified staff. “International democracy ambassadors against hate” will support this approach and offer training to young people in order to equip them with the skills necessary to fight this problem effectively and spread pro-democratic awareness within their peer groups. Project partners: The project involves partners from northern Italy, southern Germany, Alsace, Switzerland, and Belgium. Jugendstiftung Baden-Württemberg is responsible for coordinating the project. Structure: Each of the project partners will delegate two members to the steering committee, which will meet twice a year. This committee will set up working groups to develop this concept into actionable steps. Each working group will consist of two youth work specialists from each partner organisation. Switzerland and Infoklick are of considerable significance to this project due to Switzerland’s geographic and cultural proximity to southern Germany, northern Italy and Alsace, as well as the related anti-democratic and extremist networks already referred to. In addition, the project will be further underpinned by the particular quality of Infoklick’s youth education programmes and associated expertise. Objectives: 1. A cross-border network of youth education specialists will be established to promote democracy, teach human rights and prevent extremism. A presentation of this concept will be accessible on the project homepage. 2. The concept and the technical implementation for a transnational office (“respect! – combating hate on the internet”) are already in place. 3. Transnational curricula to train young people to become “international democracy ambassadors against hate” and to provide youth workers with the necessary skills to disseminate this knowledge have been compiled. The first of those youth workers have already been trained to act as multipliers. This is a certified, modular, four- to five-day qualification in democracy. The non-formal youth work education programme is designed to empower young people, particularly those with fewer opportunities, to acquire the skills to take action against any manifestations of hate and incitement. The main focus of the training is on dealing with hate speech and fake news. All participants will be entitled to receive a YouthPass certificate which provides international recognition of non-formal and informal learning achievements. 4. The process of defining key terms and clarifying the legal framework has been concluded. The results will be presented in the form of a multilingual online glossary. The project will use the existing youth work structures already present in the partner regions. Operational procedures will be regularly coordinated across practitioners from the partner regions. This allows the developed material, procedures and designs to be used immediately and provides a key foundation for future cross-border cooperation. The project objectives have already been recognised by the partners as both requirements and essential innovations in youth work.
We wanted to achieve goals at various levels: On the one hand, the results defined in the application were to be fulfilled in the form of conceptions. However, it was important to us from the outset that these theoretical results should be followed by practical implementations - therefore, these should be designed in such a way that they could be realistically implemented. Secondly, the aim was to use the project as an entry point into international cooperation. Of the seven project partners, only one was registered in the ERASMUS+ program until this project. Individual partners - first and foremost Villa Vigoni - are already internationally networked, but for all of them it was the first Strategic Partnership in the program. In addition, the national networks of the organizations should be involved in the international exchange and interested in future cross-border cooperation in the field of youth education. For the Youth Foundation and the Youth Agency, there was also the goal of familiarizing themselves with the funding program and the accompanying networks through this first ERASMUS+ project ever, in order to be able to implement further youth projects at the European level in the future and to gain further international cooperation partners.
Democracy promotion, human rights education and extremism prevention are of existential importance for an open society and for a Europe of open borders. Although all three key areas require a national perspective, they can only be shaped inadequately with this perspective. Hate speech and fake news, for example, influence the mood on the Internet to a large extent and even political decisions, regardless of borders. However, transnational offers of non-formal education for young people have hardly been tested so far, although the above-mentioned topics do not stop at borders. In order to fill this gap, the project initially aimed to develop concepts (Transnational Reporting Portal against Hate Speech and Transnational Democracy Ambassadors Concept) and theoretical foundations (transnational glossary), which in a next step should lead to the implementation of transnational youth projects. Another goal of the project was to strengthen the networking of organizations in Germany with organizations in Germany's neighboring countries in order to be able to counter transnational anti-democratic tendencies more effectively.