In a report published today, the Council of Europe Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) calls on Latvia to encourage the reporting of racist and homo-/transphobic hate crimes, promote the integration of vulnerable groups in education, language training, employment and health, and to provide for the automatic recognition of Latvian citizenship for children born to the so-called group of “non-citizens”. The financial situation, visibility and accessibility of the Ombudsman’s office have improved. The guidelines on the investigation of hate speech and hate crime have been adopted. The State Police College has significantly intensified its training activities in the area of hate crimes, including for police officers, the Prosecutor General’s office and the Supreme Court. The authorities developed an Action Plan for the implementation of the Guidelines on National Identity, Civil Society and Integration Policy (2012-2018). They also provided free Latvian language courses to national/ethnic minorities and immigrants, as well as to so-called “non-citizens” who wish to apply for citizenship. The rules for granting Latvian citizenship to newly-born children of “non-citizens” were eased. The integration of refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection has been facilitated. However, more measures are needed, especially in the areas of language training, integration into the labour market and access to healthcare services. Hate expressed by words, behaviour and attitudes is a form of violence that can easily be overlooked or ignored. When it is left unchallenged it can become normalised within our society and escalate into physical violence on a larger scale. Challenging hate when it occurs sends a clear message to young people that these attitudes and words are harmful and it takes the dehumanising impact of hate seriously. With the rapid growth of social media, which provides a willing platform, the ways in which hate speech can impact on people in all areas of society have multiplied. There is no widespread clarity on what hate speech is and how to address it. We intend for this project to meet some of these needs by supporting youth workers to have concrete and adaptable tools to enable them to recognise, challenge and ultimately transform hate speech. Our project was generated through local researches implemented by each partner locally and online. First of all, each partner had face to face meetings with their paid, half time and voluntary based youth workers and youth leaders (approx.80 youth workers, youth leaders) and participated in focus group interviews at least twice during this half a year. Approx. 100 youth professionals were involved all together. The results of local researches were uploaded in a common GoogleDrive, so we could compare to each other and highlight the explored needs: 75% of young people had experienced hate speech and behaviour because of cultural differences; 30% of young people participated in bullying their peers and 20% did not know the reason why, 7% stated because did not like the person at all, and 3% stated that because of gender, skin colour, being foreigner, etc. 20% of young people felt hurt by words from their peers, 30% was bullying via online means and 20% stated that it is funny to make jokes of others, 30% stated that they do not have information what is hate speech and behaviour. 90% of youth professionals had experienced different forms of hate speech and behaviour during their youth work activities among young people. 70% of youth professionals expressed the need to invent, share and exchange youth work methods and tools in order to transfer hate speech and behaviour in their youth work context properly. 60% of youth professionals feel the need to improve their youth work competence in order to be capable transferring hate speech and behaviour of young people properly in youth work context. Based on these, we have defined the main aim of our project: to improve the competences and youth work methods and tools of youth workers being able to facilitate the transformative process of hate speech in youth settings based on the needs of young people they work with in daily basis. Being capable to deal with hate speech through appropriate youth work methods. Learning objectives of the training course based on the needs of staff and volunteers of partners: 44 participants will be be able to facilitate a proactive group-led response to addressing hate related conflicts within group of culturally diverse young people; 44participants will be able to consider the motives behind and impact of hurtful language and to understand why some people might react differently; 44 participants will learn to recognize and reflect on the impact of hate speech from different perspectives; 44 participants will be enable the understanding of different levels of hate and how it escalates; 44 participants will become aware of existing societal structures of privilege;