Solidarity Lab

Solidarity Lab
Table of Contents
Foreword .................................................................................................................................... 3
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Solidairty Diary ............................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
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ICCT LAB ................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Human Rights LAB ................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Video LAB ............................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.2
Music LAB .............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.3
LINKS ........................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Foreword
As the Internet has become a global space for creativity, communication and participation,
internet users, and young people in particular, have a right to perceive their on-line
interactions as benefiting from the freedoms of expression and information. However,
reality tells us that the on-line world is also a space where the values of human rights are
often ignored or violated. Among others, hate speech on-line has become a major form of
human rights abuse, with very serious consequences for people, both on and offline. Young
people are directly affected as victims, targets, active and passive agents. But hate speech
affects all of society. Hate speech, as defined by the Council of Europe, “Covers all forms of
expression which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism
or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including: intolerance expressed by
aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility against minorities,
migrants and people of immigrant origin”.
The Republic of Ireland has been involved in the Council of Europe No Hate Speech
Movement since November 2013, with activities running since February 2014. The National
Youth Council of Ireland coordinates the Movement in Ireland (NHSMI). ‘Eurobug’ is a
member organization of NHSMI National Committee. ‘Eurobug’ and NHSMI stand for
building awareness of on-line hate speech (and its off-line origins and consequences) and for
supporting young people to challenge Hate Speech.
Key aspects of the ‘Solidarity LAB’ training course were looking at 'how we can build
solidarity across all marginalized groups in our activist work'. 'Solidarity LAB' was about
mobilizing youth activists and presenting a counter narrative that fights the prevalence and
tacit acceptance of hate speech in all its forms - ensuring that no minority group is left out
even when conflict arises between minority groups such as differences based on religion,
sexual orientation, membership of particular ethnic groups, etc. The main objectives of
'Solidarity LAB' were challenging racism, religious intolerance and islamophobia, sexism,
homophobia, disablism and all forms of intolerance that can be and are shared on-line,
Furthermore it sought to develop new creative tools in four main workshop groups: music,
video, ICT and human rights, that would make activism for equality and inclusion more
effective.
The main aims of 'Solidarity LAB' were providing participants with a safe space to share their
experiences and skills in the areas of equality, human rights and social inclusion in national
and international contexts; stimulating discussions on the renewed framework for European
cooperation in the youth field (2010-2018); supporting participants while developing new
tools for making activism more effective by using music, video, ICT and knowledge of human
rights; raising knowledge of historical struggles for peace and freedom between The
Republic and North of Ireland; stimulating pro-activity, citizenship and participation around
young people in Europe and neighbouring countries.
The training course took place in Co. Cavan on the border between the Republic of Ireland
and the Northern Ireland. We chose this location for the couple of reasons, first of all the
incidents of hate and hate crime in Northern Ireland are well recorded
(www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-2941406)and the No Hate Speech Campaign in UK
has not reached yet Northern Ireland. Secondly, a growing link between anti-sectarianism
and hate speech is evident with significant increases in racism, homophobia and
Islamophobia being linked directly to anti-sectarianism and to show solidarity between the
Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
'Solidarity LAB' brought together 43 people from Ireland, Lithuania, UK, Greece, Spain, The
Netherlands, Azerbaijan, Albania, Turkey, Poland, Romania, Hungary, France and Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This training course was built on interactive and creative
workshops, experience and ideas sharing activities, guest speakers’ inputs, visit to mosque in
Dublin and Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre.
Aiste Slajute
The director of ‘Eurobug’
Solidarity Lab Diary
Day 1: Our day began as usual with our meeting at Dublin Airport. After some slight waiting
around we were on our way to remote location of
Solidarity Lab at Castle Saunderson in County
Cavan, Ireland. The location, a Scout Retreat on an
old estate complete with ghostly surroundings and
howling winds would be our home for the next
week. After dinner we began the programme for
the week with an introduction from the team and
participants.
Day 2: Began with breakfast followed by the first of our icebreaking games. As we were a big
group this was a particularly difficult exercise. Participants had to throw a ball to one other
member whose names they remembered from the previous night. They then had to repeat
the exercise with some funny results. Once more we had to repeat the exercise, this time
backwards. After many
attempts the group completed the task
and everyone was
some the wiser of others names an
impressive result on
only the second day.
More team building
involved
placing
which
their
the map. Ann then
to
explain
which
there were together 43
Greece, Spain, The
Poland,
Romania,
Republic of Macedonia.
exercises followed. “The map of Europe”
members around the room in the order in
corresponding countries would appear on
went around the map asking each group
country and city they came from. In total
people from Ireland, Lithuania, UK,
Netherlands, Azerbaijan, Albania, Turkey,
Hungary, France and Former Yugoslav
Human bingo then followed. Each group member was issued with a sheet of 30 questions;
they then had to go around the room asking fellow participants which one of the questions
they could answer. The questions varied from “Which member spoke 5 or more languages”
to “Who had never participated in an Erasmus Plus project before”. Once someone had filled
in all of the answers they had to shout bingo and they were crowned the winner. We had a
split decision, 2 winners, Paulina and Alex, both from Poland.
It was then time for the group to complete their “Face 2 Facebook”,
as we had limited access to the internet in Castle Saunderson one
might think of this as an internet substitute, an analogue internet
even. Members created their own Face 2 Facebook page complete
with envelopes to receive mail from fellow participants. Members
then paired up to tell their story to one another and then had to
relay the story to the rest of the group. One stand out observation
from this
exercise was that the most common favourite color was green, quite fitting considering our
surroundings. It was then time to hand out the Solidarity lab notebooks which would be kept
by the group for the duration of the course.
Following coffee break, participants then had to think about their
fears and expectations for the week and place them on the “tree
of apprehension” and the “tree of possibilities” the aim being to
dismiss as many fears and realise as many possibilities as possible
during the coming week. We then began “setting the frame” with
the creation of a group contract in which listening, respect and
time keeping were key components to the creation of the “safe
space”. We then continued with the outline and aims of the
programme for the coming week which included.
1, Share skills and experiences relating to equality, human
rights, social inclusion and the creation of a safe space.
2, Develop new tools to make activism more effective
throughout Europe.
3, To stimulate pro-activity, citizenship and participation in
Europe and neighbouring countries.
4, To raise knowledge of historical struggles for peace between the North and Republic of
Ireland.
We then had another game. This time “Solidarity Jenga”,
players had to write their names on a Jenga block and then
build the tower. The blocks were then removed one by one
and then when a person’s name was pulled from the tower
it was their turn to remove a block and so on…
By the end, the tower was still standing and there was a
great sense of solidarity and achievement within the group.
Each member spoke of the assistance they received from
the group and felt encouraged going forward with the programme.
The “No Hate Speech” presentation by Ann then followed. Topics included, What is hate?
and What is Hate Speech? It was a very informative presentation which answered a lot of
the groups questions regarding the No Hate Speech Movement.
The group then had to split into smaller groups of 3 each and answer the following
questions.
1) Where do you see hate speech?
2) What kind of hate speech do you see?
3) How do you recognise hate speech?
A group discussion then followed and the general consensus was that the group seen hate
speech almost everywhere from online platforms to graffiti on walls. One of our Dutch
participants, Naomi, pointed out 3 forms of hate speech.
1) Jokes
2) Direct insults
3) Actions both verbal and physical assaults.
Ann then presented the “Pyramid of Hate” which represented the differing levels of hate
from hate speech all the way up to genocide. It was then time for the presentations of the
four different Solidarity Labs.
First came, Justas and Romas with Music lab. The guys demonstrated the various equipment
and programmes that they would be using throughout the lab including hardware such as
microphones and mixers and software such as Audacity which would be used to record the
song they would create with the group. They rounded off the presentation by showing a
video for a song they had written.
Second was ICCT skills lab with Anna. As always Anna had a well-defined plan which was as
follows.
1) To find good examples of campaigns in participants respective countries and indeed
overall.
2) Different tools that could be used as part of a campaign.
3) Brainstorming of a number of different ideas to be used in the creation of an online
campaign.
4) The implementation of the campaign created by ICCT lab.
Third was Human Rights Lab with Sarah. Once again the focus was on campaigning with five
different aspects to the lab.
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
How people change from children to adults.
Fighting hate speech.
Creating a strategic plan for a campaign.
Public speaking.
The ability to transmit your message.
Work together.
And last but certainly not least was Video lab with Dimitris. The ever charismatic Greek did
not exactly have a presentation more of a speech in which he entertained participants with
his vision for Video lab. He would teach people about the process of video making from start
to finish and demonstrate a number of tools that would be used in the production from
video cameras to editing software. The ultimate aim for the lab would be the creation of a
video for the No Hate Speech Movement. After all of the presentations came a question and
answers section before participants had to choose a group to work in for the week.
It was then time for the “Solidarity Debate” or the “Moving Debate”. Participants had to
answer two questions relating to a number of different groups who experience hate speech.
1) Is it difficult to stand in solidarity with X group. 2) is it easy to stand in solidarity with X
group. The group had to stand on whatever side of the room corresponding to the above
statements. The first group was Syrian refugees. The majority of the group stood in the
middle of the room or found it easy to stand in solidarity. Second was the LGBTQ
community. This time the group found it overwhelmingly easy to stand in solidarity with
100% of participants standing in solidarity. Third were Muslim people who experienced hate
speech. This proved to be more divisive, the majority of people stood in solidarity yet there
were many in the middle and a few on the opposing side. Finally, the Roma people, this time
the majority were in the middle and many standing in solidarity with the community.
The first of the “Steam Room” sessions was the last activity of the day. Participants were
placed into small groups to discuss the day and blow of some steam. The aim was to provide
feedback to the trainers to be used throughout the programme. After a very busy and
intensive second day it was time for dinner and the first of our evening activities “Guess
Who?” Participants were invited to bring along some pictures of themselves as children, the
rest of the group had to guess which participant the baby picture was of. It proved to be a
great winding down activity and a lot of fun was had by all.
Day 3: Began with a recap of the previous day and an intro to the programme of the day.
First came the listening exercise “Who are you?” The group was split into pairs and had to
talk for five uninterrupted minutes about who they are. They then had two minutes to come
up with one word an “emotional word” to describe their partner. Then came reflection from
the group with some participants finding it easier to talk then listen and vice versa. Some of
the words that came to describe the group were open, powerful, joyful, comfortable,
interesting, diligent, hopeful, enthusiastic, liberated, sensitive and of course funny. The
exercise was then repeated with another partner.
Next came “Social theatre: The Theatre of the oppressed” with Elena and Aiste. The group
was split into four in which they had to discuss personal experiences of oppression. They
then had to choose one story from the group and perform it for the rest of the group. After
lunch the group returned and we were all in for a treat as they performed their carefully
constructed performances. The first group performed “Discrimination on a Bus”. Trainer
Sarah played the part of a homeless woman trying to board a bus. Music labs very own
Justas played the part of the discriminatory bus driver while other members of the group
played the passengers. After the performance the audience was asked for solutions to the
problem. Lithuanian and also music lab participant Ileva came up with one, simply sitting
beside the person and talking to them.
Following this, “Gender discrimination in the workplace”. Participants acted out a scenario in
which one member came up with an idea to improve efficiency within the fictional company
and as such save the company money. The boss dismissed this idea straight away. When one
of the other participants raised the same idea the boss immediately took it on-board. The
message was clear, that the others idea was chosen simply because the boss was the same
gender.
Next was “Sexism & Racism in the workplace”. This story centred around a social worker,
Lena and her co-workers. Trainer Dimitrius played one of the co-workers who made some
derogatory comments to Lena, another group of participants played a group of younger
people drinking and taking drugs in the park. When approached by Lena to see if they
wanted help they threw a volley of racial and sexist slurs at her to which her colleagues did
nothing to counter. One conclusion made by the group was that obviously her colleagues
should have done more to help and that the co-worker should have been reported for his
behaviour.
Finally came a re-enactment of the Ankara bomb attack. Participants played the part of
protesters while Ozgur was a protester who left the scene early and only heard later on the
news the fate of his friends. It was a very emotional experience for both performers and
audience members with more than one being brought to tears.
There was then an “Intro to Solidarity Labs as the first sessions would take place the
following day.
After dinner it was time for the ever popular Culture Night. Group members brought along
food and beverages from their countries as well as some enlightening presentations. A fun
and late night was had by all.
Day 4: Following culture night, some fresh air was needed to
start the day so a trip to castle Saunderson and the border
between the North and Republic of Ireland was just what the
doctor ordered. Our tour guide and manager of the scout lodge,
Noel, led us on our way and treated us to the story of the history
of the estate its castle and church which we were able to go
inside and experience the history.
This trip was the ideal preparation for our second guest speaker. Matt is a community
relations expert from Northern Ireland and he spoke with us at length about the process of
reconciliation in Northern Ireland. He helped the group to understand the conflict, to learn
tools to address conflict and the consequences of both conflict and the process of
reconciliation. The group agreed that his was a valuable contribution and many thought they
had learned some practices to take back home with them.
Finally it was time for the beginning of Solidarity labs. To begin the four lab groups split to
determine a common theme that would run throughout all labs. They settled on “Borders”.
How the labs interpreted this theme was up to them and it would be interesting to see what
each unique lab would produce for their final presentation.
ICCT Skills, Ania Knap.
I was the facilitator of the ICCT LAB on the Solidarity LAB training course run by Eurobug. I
had the pleasure to work with people from all over the world during my lab. During the first
lab we discussed good examples of campaigns in our countries and around the world and we
were analysing them, watching videos and discussing about the campaigns and our feelings
about them. The next step was to discuss about the tools that are used in communication
campaigns, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, and many others.
This was followed by a discussion about which tools should we use in our campaign and
which would be the fastest and most efficient method for our lab. We chose to go with
Twitter and Facebook, as they are the most popular tools and using them we could spread
the campaign all over the world. The next day we were brainstorming about what kind of
approach should we take making our campaign and what do we want to achieve with this.
Of course this also included what our campaign is going to look like. The group shared great
ideas and, due to the refugee crisis at that time, they decided to go with the word "Borders".
We had an amazing discussion about what borders mean to us and how we can present that
in an easy way while simultaneously encouraging people to think. The next day was the day
of the trip to Dublin and the group decided they will be talking to people there about
borders and our campaign and they will see if we would be able to make a video from the
interactions with people. It was a noble idea; however we had in mind the weather in Dublin
and very limited time to do such an ambitious project. The next day we were looking over
and discussing the materials that the group had gathered during the trip to Dublin.
There was a lengthy discussion about how we should launch the campaign online. During
that time, the rest of the group were discussing about the campaign on twitter and everyone
shared their ideas. We were able to upload many pictures, that the group took during the
week, onto the twitter account and shared the hashtag #WeCrossBorders. Finally, after a
great amount of editing we were able to upload the video that the group made during the
Dublin trip and, for such a small amount of time we had, it was a great success of around 700
views. The end to this LAB was a presentation of the group in the evening of the last day of
the training. As a facilitator, I stepped back with the preparation of this presentation and I
gave total freedom for the people to do what they think is right as an empowerment to
them. I know that when they will be back in their countries, that might be their job, leading
in certain campaigns, starting new ideas and movements. I'm very, very proud of the group
for their involvement and hard work thorough the week. It was a great pleasure to work
with them and be part of this amazing project.
Human Rights Lab, Sarah Boutaib.
The goal of the Human Rights Lab was to challenge racism, religious intolerance and
islamophobia as well as sexism and homophobia and to develop innovative online campaign
solutions. In this lab, the eight participants from Albania, Azerbaijan, France, Hungary,
Romania, the Netherlands and the UK developed their understanding of the essence, the
philosophy and the international framework of HR and practised their skills in online
campaigning. They shared their experience through discussions and debates on the human
rights context in their different countries and came up with possible plans of action.
The group took ownership by deciding to plan a campaign for the promotion of refugee
rights and the right to mobility that they could launch as ambassadors in their own
countries. During two and a half days, they organised as a campaign team and:

used creative design based on illustrations, imagination and storytelling to translate
in an innovative way traditional offline activist strategies into the digital world

identified active/passive allies and opposition

found multipliers to grow their impact

created the message and content of their campaign

discussed how they could articulate online/offline campaigning to get the people in
their countries involved (in case of having remote access to internet)

worked on story-telling to create the presentation of their campaign plan and get
their fellow participants involved.
At the end of the Human Rights lab, the campaign team knew how to plan a communication
strategy and build a campaign strategy, including contents, actions and milestones. They
were aware of the problematic of access to rights and understood the difference between
protection and promotion of human rights and how promotion actually impacted the
effectiveness of protection. They could express themselves better in english and summon
the adequate vocabulary to promote Human Rights and had practised advocacy public
speaking in English. They had developed ownership through a participative decision making
process and dealt effectively with their own cultural diversity within the team.
Video Lab, Dimitris Savvaidis.
I was very excited to be a part of the Solidarity Lab and facilitate the Video Lab. Coming from
AddArt an organization that’s primary function is to add art into socially sensitive subjects I
felt right in my place. I learned more about the no hate speech movement and solidarity
movements. Then the workshop started and we had some knowledge and techniques of
filming and directing spread around in order to comprehend the task ahead. Then we got
creative searching for an inspiration and a video to make and express our feelings and
statements about solidarity.
We came up with the idea of using quotes from known philosophers, pacifists, artists and
general great people to empower our voices sending our message "Keep Crossing Borders"
out for everyone to start crossing their own internal, external, literal or figurative borders.
We then shot the video in 17 languages and with 17 different people to state the diversity of
the message but kept the main message in English so it can be reapeted enough to get
through. We had brought with us professionall equipment, cameras, microphones etc and
we had a very good result with passion and creativity thriving through the days of the
Solidarity Lab. We edited the video and had a projector showing people the whole process
and decided all the final touches like music and color correction and then it was ready. But
the work continued after the end of the Solidarity Lab peoplewere engaged so much with
this project that they made 15 different language subtitles for this video. It was launched
at December 10th "Humans Rights" day in the YouTube with all the subtitles availiable and it
reached almost 1.500 views until now. I think it is fair to say that it wad one of the most
successful workshops I have ever facilitate and took part.
Video Lab, Eirini Michailidou.
Solidarity Lab was an amazing experience. I learned more about solidarity and got informed
thoroughly about the No Hate Speech movement, but the most important thing is that I
learned about the different mediums I can use to communicate to others what solidarity
means and spread it in my own way. During the workshop I was part of the video lab team,
where we talked about cinematography, the different stages a video has to go through and
how we can use it to communicate any message in a very immediate but also effective way.
The concept was to complete a video campaign during our week there, so everyone worked
really hard to achieve that. The final result exceeded our expectations and I’m really happy
and thankful that I was part of such a project.
Music Lab, Romas Shampas and Justas Šlajus.
The entire music lab team collaborated to create the song, Ice Bars:
Ieva: I want to cross the sea because I need to leave my homeland. Dreaming of a better life
but this is not the end. My body is here but my mind is elsewhere. Where should I go? I need
to get there.
I am in my place but a prisoner of safe space. Imprisoned at home by strife. Drowned in
misery and desperate, secretly dreaming of a better life.
break
Aurore:I am the pilot of the crashing plane going insane descending into madness, I was in an
ice dark cage. My body burns on contact with the bars,. How can I escape from the flame?
She burns my vein, my heart and my eyes, where am I? I cannot see the lights of my dreams,
who am I? Where is my mind?
Break
Dqvid:I’m walking down the line that divides my mind. On the borderline and where I walk
with myself, my shadow’s the only one that walks with me my heart’s the only thing that
beats inside me. Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me.
I had a view of amazing life, it has changed and I don’t know should I stop or (should I) fight?
I’m a human too oh god please tell me what I need to do.
It is not the same as it was in the beginning.
Judith:Planet Earth is full of hate, feels like borders closed the gate, it is not too late to be
kind and share from the same plate.
Romas:To be honest I feel like the loneliest person on the planet, I was told that it’s possible
to find the happiness abroad, and it’s odd how people judge each other depending on their
gender, beliefs or body cover.
Ieva:So take me as I am by all means, í ll have to be stronger human being.
Muhsine: It’s time to turn the page another chapter and start to tolerate, have you ever
wondered how much would it change with no hate?
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_uo1SPFna0&feature=applinks
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1519916081659576/ (Ice Bars)
Cover Illustration & Magazine Design by Lizzy @ ILUZIE - www.iluzie.nl
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