PROJECT NAME:

Countering Discrimination, hate speech, gender-based violenve 2022/441-438

SECTOR:

Rule of Law

PROJECT VALUE:

Total cost of the project; 200,000.00 EUR EU contribution € 180,000.00 EUR

DURATION:

30 months Start Date: 01/01/2023 End Date: 30/06/2025

IMPLEMENTING PARTNER:

Advocacy Training Resource Center – ATRC

DIRECT BENEFICIARY:

Advocacy Training Resource Center – ATRC, Internews Kosova – IKS, Democrafy for Development – D4D

PARTNERS:

Internews Kosova – IKS, Democrafy for Development – D4D

COVERAGE/IMPACT:

Youth, teachers, public institutions (municipalities, Centre for Social Work, Kosovo Police), educational institutions (schools, universities), health institutions, citizens, and potential future politicians.

OVERALL OBJECTIVE:

Overall Objectives – Increased Institutional transparency and accountability and enhanced citizens’ awareness and mobilization to counter discrimination, hate speech and gender-based violence. Specific objective 1. Enhance the transparency and implementation of the anti-discrimination legislation and policies; Specific objective 2. Strengthen the capacities of duty-bearers and youngster in combating anti-discrimination and all forms of violence; Specific objectives 3. Raise public awareness on countering hate-speech and gender-based violence.

PROJECT PURPOSES:

ATRC, Internews Kosova, and D4D have joined efforts in monitoring, reporting, providing capacity building program for stakeholders and advocating for the effective implementation of anti-discrimination policies, as a means of strengthening institutional response, countering discrimination, hate crimes and gender-based violence in all its forms. ATRC, Internews Kosova, and D4D have comprehensive expertise in delivering programs which advocate for human rights, equality and rule of law. Furthermore, project partners are versed in monitoring public institutions and policies, drafting regulations, providing concrete recommendations, and giving financial support to third parties. These jointly combined efforts will impact the effective implementation of this action which designed to fight and tackle discrimination at its core, while combining actions with active citizens’ engagements, public officials and those inclined to facing discrimination in their daily lives. Internews Kosova has continuously reported about cases of various discrimination forms and has prominently contributed to increase citizen awareness on the issue of discrimination. Internews Kosova and ATRC have been working on detecting, addressing, and reporting cases of hate speech against women and ethnic minority communities, through online platforms that include media monitoring and artificial intelligence, which analyse and compare online content while it has primarily focused on electoral processes, namely the language used by political parties and the media and when this language was discriminatory or incited hate. ATRC comes with broad experience and expertise in managing and distributing sub-grants, hands-on mentoring and coaching CSO’s on advocacy efforts and to ensure institutional representation and action to address findings and recommendations. Among the practices on what D4D is highly specialized is providing safe environments for various professionals to convene and share their perspectives and practices in the form of Tuesday Salons, through discussing panels. In the past few years, D4D has held over 300 Tuesday salons with about 5000 participants including institutional representatives, thematic experts, civil society activists, media and over 5849 youth. All of three partners possess previous joint expertise, are well-acquainted with each other’s methodologies and thus have great prospect for a smooth, effective and timely cooperation and implementation of the proposed action. Therefore, based on all the details given in this section, it is very important to restate the focus and purpose of the project. The primary target is all citizens of the country, to raise awareness and mitigate cases of hate speech or discrimination, whether racial or gender. To achieve this, each of the collaborating organizations in this project must offer its expertise. So awareness will always start from the new generations or young people within the municipalities, with whom the action will cooperate and create new opportunities. Also, the analysis of the laws and the latest reports on this topic will be done by the partner organizations, to see in more detail the current situation, so that we can then take the appropriate actions related to the activities that will be.

PROJECT STRATEGY:

The project’s key objective is to enhance the anti-discrimination legislation and policies, strengthening the capacities of duty-bearers and youngsters in combating anti-discrimination and all forms of violence and raising public awareness on countering hate-speech and gender-based violence and increase transparency and accountability of the government and municipalities. The Action strives to strengthen compliance with the Anti-discrimination laws, strengthen capacities of duty bearers and CSO’s, and increase public awareness about human rights and reporting mechanisms, and public trust in institutions responsible for enforcing the law. Specifically, the action expects to yield the following outputs/results: 1.10 municipalities and public health institutions monitored on the level of implementation of strategic and programmatic legal framework obligations in the human rights domain; 2: Over 100.000 people reached through advocacy activities such as TV debates, videos, stories, and discussion meetings with citizens; 3: 30 youngesrts from political parties trained on prevention of hate speech and initiate anti-discrimination actions; 4: Up to five (5) small grants awarded to local youth CSOs to counter discrimination, hate incitement and hate speech and other forms of violence in local community; 5: 25 youngsters from 13 municipalities will be trained on promoting equality and diversity in the community; 6: 50 duty-bearers trained about practices of handling violent hate cases among youth in schools and community; 7. 10 Tuesday Discussion Salons elaborated topics with more than participants panellists on findings from the anti-discrimination reports. The impact of the implementation of the activities will be present continuously, beginning from the monitoring of the local level stakeholders on the implementation of strategic and programmatic legal frameworks obligations in the human rights domain, which will enable the Action’s beneficiaries to acknowledge their rights and enhance their situation through non-formal meetings and sharing concrete recommendation to the local level municipalities. Through capacity building, around 50 duty bearers, including teachers, social workers and police officers, as well as civil society and about 60 youngsters will have increased knowledge on human rights, anti-dicrimination policies, hate speech, and other forms of violence and raise awareness to promote human rights in community. The youth camp and training of youth forums of political parties will foster a new generation that promotes diversity, inclusion, and equality in the community as Kosovo aspires to respect the fundamental democratic and European values. The sub-granting scheme and supporting activities aim to address and eliminate all types of discrimination among youth through education, mediation, and intercultural skills, critical thinking, and empowerment of disadvantaged groups and use their sources to prevent the phenomena of violence spread among new generations. The products and results generated from the sub-granting scheme are expected to be sustainable far beyond the project lifecycle. While the skills developed will help future content production on human rights, local CSOs are expected to sustain interest and continue their engagement in promoting human rights of vulnerable groups, emphasizing the gender-based violence, which is one of largest forms of violence spread around Kosovo.

ACTIVITIES:

1. Compiling two annual reports on the enforcement of anti-discrimination policies 2. Organize two annual conferences to publish anti-discrimination reports and providing concrete recommendations and raising awareness on the implementation of anti-discrimination policies 3. Publishing six stories to identify the problems & promote creative solutions to human rights problems 4. Training on the topic of “Fake News, Hate Incitement, Prevention and Advocacy for Human Rights” for 30 youngsters from political parties 5. Award and manage 5 grants to the local youth CSOs to counter discrimination, hate speech, and other forms of violence 6. Organizing a youth camp with 25 youngsters to promote equality and diversity in the community and human rights 7. Promotion of equality and diversity through small initiatives of youth in schools 8. Organizing 3 capacity strengthening trainings on providing psychosocial services to help victims of violent hate, bullying, or other forms of violence and discrimination, particularly among young people for 50 duty bearers 9. School Safety Meter - Situation analysis on school security through focus group meetings with children, parents, and child protection professional 10. Organizing 10 Tuesday discussion salons on findings from the anti-discrimination reports

RESULTS:

Increase institutional transparency and accountability and enhance citizens’ awareness and mobilization to counter discrimination, hate speech and gender-based violence. In reaching the overall objective, the action will strive to achieve three specific objectives: SO1: Enhance government and municipalities’ transparency and accountability on the implementation of the anti-discrimination legislation and policies; SO2: Strengthen the capacities of duty-bearers and youngsters in tackling forms of discrimination and combating discrimination in all its forms of violence and SO3: Raise public awareness on countering hate-speech and gender-based violence. The proposed action will generate the following outputs: OU1: 10 municipalities and public health institutions monitored on the level of implementation of strategic and programmatic legal framework obligations in the human rights domain; OU2: Over 100.000 people reached through advocacy activities such as TV debates, stories, and discussion meetings with citizens; OU3: 30 young citizens’ trained to initiate anti-discrimination actions; OU4: 5 small grants awarded to local youth CSOs to counter discrimination, hate incitement and hate speech, and gender inequality; OU5: 20-25 youngsters trained on promoting equality and diversity in the community; OU6: 50 duty-bearers trained about practices of handling violent hate among youth in schools; OU7: 10 Tuesday Discussion Salons elaborated topics generated from anti-discrimination reports. The Action will deliver the expected results through joint implementation of precisely and custom-tailored designed activities which will contribute to long lasting results through, promoting anti-discrimination policies, strengthening institutional capacities and response, countering hate speech and gender inequality, and promoting human rights for the most vulnerable communities with a special emphasis on people with disabilities and youth. Moreover, the following activities will be delivered during the 30-month implementation period.