“CauCAN - Counter and Alternative Narratives for Human Rights in the Caucasus” is a project which addresses the contemporary challenges and threats for human rights and democratic values in the Caucasus and in Europe and offers multi-layered, multifaceted and comprehensive response through education, youth grassroot actions, cross-sectorial cooperation and youth participation.With its second focal point project introduces media literacy as an analytical tool for fact-checking and discrediting oppressive narratives, “Media education contributes to people’s empowerment and a shared sense of responsibility in society and as such is part of citizenship and human rights education”. The project will use Council of Europe materials (Bookmarks, We CAN!) to create a know-how on taking action against violent extremism, hate speech, anti-western propaganda through human rights education, education for democratic citizenship, media education and literacy and counter and alternative narratives. The aim of this project is to develop media literacy and critical consciousness of youth in the Caucasus through advocating EDC/HRE and confront narratives discrediting the concept of liberal democracy, rule of law, human rights; Objectives:- To increase the quality of youth services and youth work offered by the participating organisations by equipping the Civil Society Fellows with multiplier competencies in EDC/HRE and media education;- To create educational opportunities and support grass-root initiatives for young people in EDC/HRE and increase their participation in civil society, and through this, create practices of taking action against propaganda and hate speech with young people through a counter and alternative narratives, and present them to international and regional civil society organisations;- To increase accessibility of educational tools offered by Council of Europe, UN and the European Commission and disseminate it to civil society and youth organisations;- To promote and advocate for EDC/HRE European Charter and to create cross-sector and multi-level cooperation opportunities in the field of EDC/HRE and media literacy;- To create tangible, long-lasting outcomes, tools and instruments, as well as practices in EDC/HRE in terms of countering propaganda, hate speech and cyberbullying.Via multiplying the youth workers will stimulate initiating grass-root actions by young people on countering hate- and biased-driven oppressive narratives through counter and alternative narratives. Therefore, it’s a subject to shaping youth voices in civil society of the Caucasus and the general public. The project consists of 6 mobility activities, 7 capacity building activities and local activities between the phases which are not shown in the budget, but it’s a part of the project.
After gaining independence Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have started developing open society and building a democratic state. Since democratic society implies basic principles such as pluralism and prohibition of discrimination, struggle for equality and human rights have been brought to a public discourse. Throughout the last decade we have witnessed an increasing trend of polarization in Caucasus and Europe. Higher incidences of violent extremism hate crime and hostility towards different groups especially manifested through hate speech are becoming worryingly frequent in everyday lives. Several reports pointed the rise of violent extremism (Amnesty International ¨Annual Report 2016-2017”, Human Rights Watch ¨World Report 2017¨). In 2010s multiple international and civil society organisations have reported higher incidences of anti-western propaganda, which attacks the liberal values that underpin human rights. The strongest anti-western narratives try to convince the audiences that the Western World is imposing policies and values incompatible with the national traditions and values. Through this approach, especially the rights of LGBTQI community are being under a constant attack, together with efforts for promoting gender equality, rights of ethnic and religious minorities and the creators of these narratives systematically incite hatred and encourage nationalism, prejudices and discrimination, and also undermine other fundamental human rights. Due to the unconsolidated media environment of Caucasus, these dangerous messages spread among wide public and combating them requires not only constantly debunking specific cases of disinformation and fake news, but mainly systematic education of the population. Freedom House report "Nations in Transit 2017" has alarming findings regarding central and eastern Europe – more than a half of the countries in the report have declined in their Democracy Scores. With its second focal point, this project identifies human rights education and education for democratic citizenship (EDC/HRE) as one of the key tools to develop critical consciousness and empower society against propaganda. “Human rights education - helps to develop the communication skills and informed critical thinking essential to a democracy. It examines human rights issues without bias and from diverse perspectives through a variety of educational practices” (Human Rights Here and Now: Celebrating the UDHR, ed. Nancy Flowers (Minneapolis: Human Rights Educators’ Network, Amnesty International USA, 1998). The project used Council of Europe materials (Bookmarks, We CAN!) to create a know-how on taking action against violent extremism, hate speech, anti-western propaganda through human rights education, education for democratic citizenship, media education and literacy and counter and alternative narratives.Project aimed to develop media literacy and critical consciousness of youth in Caucasus through advocating EDC/HRE and confront narratives discrediting the concept of liberal democracy, rule of law, human rights;Objectives:To train the fellows in EDC/HRE and media education;To create educational opportunities for young people in EDC/HRE and increase their participation in civil society;To create the practice of using counter and alternative narratives with young people to discredit propaganda and hate speech;To make Council of Europe educational tools more accessible and disseminate it with civil society organizations;To create practices of counter and alternative narratives against propaganda and hate speech and disseminate it in international and regional civil society organisations;To promote and advocate for EDC/HRE European Charter and to create cross-sector and multi-level cooperation opportunitie