Co-creating alternative narratives to prevent extremism: BE PART OF COMMIT

May 26, 2022News

On Wednesday 11th May, the Final Conference of COMMIT project took place in Palermo, at the Sala delle Capriate of the monumental complex Chiaramonte – Steri, seat of the Rectorate of the University of Palermo.

The conference, entitled “Alternative Narratives against hate and extremism From awareness to education, from communication to activism” has been the occasion to present the results of the project and to review more than two years of work promoted by the Centre for Creative Development Danilo Dolci, the University of Palermo and the European partners of the project, in order to prevent violent extremism and radicalisation through capacity building activities with university students, representatives of civil society organisations and young people, and through the co-creation and diffusion of alternative narratives with the COMMIT communication campaign.

During the first part of the conference, after the presentation of the project and its results, we had the honour to host Professor Derrick de Kerckhove (The McLuhan Foundation) as key spearker, with the presentation “All news is fake news: the contemporary epistemological crisis and extremism”.

In the second part, a panel discussion took place with the project partners, some participants and external experts working in the project, to talk about online hate speech, how to monitor it, how to deal with it and how to combat it, through an online awareness campaign, created by young people for young people.

Each partner gave an insight on a different aspect of the project:

  • Quantifying the prevalent hate speech trends through social media monitoring and Artificial Intelligence – Olivier Cauberghs, Textgain, Belgium
  • The COMMIT campaigns approach – George Weiss, Sophie Aandewiel, Radio La Benevolencjia, the Netherlands
  • Criteria for answering hate speech online – Robert Örell, Transform, Sweden
  • How to manage a communication campaign on social media: tips and lesson learned – Felix Hafner, dieBerater, Austria
  • Experience from UNIPA students in the campaigns’ co-creation – Giorgia Costanzo, UNIPA, Italy
  • The COMMIT Intervention support line: challenges and opportunities – Nikos Kostis, KMOP, Greece

Do you want to re-watch the conference? You can find the full video of the event Here

Be part of COMMIT

The final conference has been the occasion to launch the COMMIT Declaration, a memorandum of understanding developed by the participants to the COMMIT Capacity Building in Italy, Greece, Austria and Netherlands, with bottom-up recommendations on how to combat extremist content online, prevent radicalisation and promote the European democratic values in the everyday life.

With the COMMIT Declaration, we want you to share our vision and let us know that you want to be part of our daily effort against hate, that you want to COMMIT yourself!

You can do it by SIGNING THE COMMIT DECLARATION https://commitproject.eu/declaration/

and BEING PART OF COMMIT.

If you sign the COMMIT Declaration, you will be able to join our network, registering to the COMMIT Forum, an online space dedicated to university students, media and communication professionals, civil society organisations, youth organisations, public authorities, young activists and anyone interested in share their contacts, ideas, experiences in dealing with extremism and online hate!


You will be able to get in touch with other people, who share, like us, the same vision and commitment against hate, at National and European level.

 We want to create a network to learn from each other, share doubts or creative ideas, propose new initiatives and strengthen already existing ones, start new cooperation and disseminate other campaigns or contents, also after the end of the project.

BE PART OF COMMIT and STAY TUNED FOR MORE NEWS COMING SOON!


COMMIT – COMMunIcation campaign against exTremism and radicalisation is a European project funded by the European Commission under the Internal Security Fund – Civil Society Empowering Programme, coordinated by Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci, in cooperation with the University of Palermo and other 4 organisations in Europe. COMMIT aims at to prevent and dissuade susceptible & vulnerable audience from extremism, radicalism & terrorism through the development of communication campaigns on social media.

Partners

For further information follow the european campaign on Facebook and Instagram, visit the website https://commitproject.eu/ or contact Antonella Alessi: antonella.alessi@danilodolci.org.