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Reporting diversity: an ethical representation of migrants and minorities
Start date: Aug 1, 2015, End date: Jan 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

“Reporting diversity: an ethical representation of migrants and minorities” is a project that had the goal to make space for sharing experiences and developing the competences of a sensitive representation of vulnerable groups and raise awareness about hate provocation and manipulation. Across Europe populist and extremist movements are manipulating peoples’ fears and prejudices to build support for their divisive policies. Inciting hatred against unpopular social groups is a classic strategy to gain visibility and garner votes, especially in times of economic crises. Media play a significant role in provoking hate speech and creating stereotypes. However, the institutions that educate journalists do not have opportunity for interactive learning how to portray these groups ethically, without making a negative impact. Thus many journalists do this in a harmful manner, that fosters negative prejudices and hate crimes. What is the role of the media and journalists when hate speech is on the increase? Who should decide on the limits of freedom of speech? How do media professionals in other countries tackle the problem of hate speech and discrimination? The unique blend of teaching methods and experience of experts enabled participants to apply the newly acquired knowledge and insights gained during the exchange in your day-to-day work practices. During the exchange participants had the opportunity to speak to people from various socially vulnerable groups and prepare articles for their media. The exchange programme was based on a methodology that allowed clear identification of barriers, encouraged to work on essential skills and transfer knowledge into action. Following goals helped to reach the main aim of the project: - To establish a network for the international cooperation between organizations, journalists and experts, in order to contribute to personal and professional development of young journalists; - To increase capacity to use proper language, which does not inspire negative stereotypes and do not evoke discrimination; - To increase the capacity of journalists to gain trust of vulnerable groups, take interview and use the direct testimony of migrants in their articles. - To increase critical thinking and capacity to identify hate provocation in the media; - To develop skills for searching the official sources, statistics and checking the facts. - To facilitate the process of transfer knowledge into action. The exchange were divided into different phases, based on seminars and non-formal education methods: 1) Presentations: The peers - experts of media, migration, legislation and social politics described the status of migrants and minorities in Lithuania and in Europe, to give participants an adequate knowledge of the topic; 2) Non-formal education method: interactive discussion among participants. Participants will compare their ideas and points of view, in order to identify their barriers and prejudices about migrants and minorities; 3) Direct witness: people from minority groups will speak about the main problems – working, social, juridical, economic - that they face into the society; 4) Creative workshop: the young journalists, with the help of the experts, found the right methodology on how to portray minority issues in the media and how to promote the integration and the mutual respect among different groups. The exchange was 7 days long and it was held in Italy on October 2015. 44 young journalists or people who work for media can take part to the training- exhange. The partner organisation are: Arci Catania, United Societies of Balkans, Centrul pentru Jurnalism Independent, S.O.S. Racismo Gipuzkoa Asociacion, Fundacio Universitaria Balmes, Cospe Firenze. The project had a positive impact on the skills and competences of participants. They improved the capacity to think critically and to recognize the hate provocation and the manipulation in media. The young journalists are more confident in working with different targets of society and they were able to offer a truthful representation of vulnerable groups. On the other side, the partner organisations experience a raise of quality through a raise of competences among its human resources; they also had extended and deepened their European network for learning and future European activities. Finally the organisation have a well-developed plan for involvement of staff and volunteers in future strategic processes. The education programme for young generations is a key way to change society step by step. This training was based on the idea that young journalists can reinforce the values of integration and mutual respect, and use media to ensure an ethical portray of migrants and minorities. When this attitude will become a common way to work in journalism, the hate speech on media will have less space and it will be easier and easier to fight against discrimination.

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