KCToday marks the launch of the SELMA (Social and Emotional Learning for Mutual Awareness) website.
SWGfL is helping to deliver the two year project along with four other partners: European Schoolnet, For Adolescent Health, The Diana Award, LMK and Centre for Digital Youth Care.
Co-funded by the European Commission SELMA aims to tackle the problem of online hate speech by promoting mutual awareness, tolerance, and respect.
Online hate speech is a growing problem. People often experience the internet to be a hostile space. Hateful messages are increasingly common on social media. To complement existing initiatives to regulate, monitor or report online hate speech, a more pro-active answer is clearly needed.
The overall vision of the SELMA project is captured by its catchphrase: Hacking Hate. It builds upon a Social and Emotional Learning approach to empowering young people to become agents of change; it helps them to better understand the phenomenon of online hate; it provides them with tools and strategies to act and make a difference.
In more concrete terms, SELMA will target young people (age 11-16), primarily in schools, but also in the out-of-school communities that impact on their well-being. It will engage them – together with their peers, teachers, parents and other professionals and carers – in a multifaceted learning journey.
It will foster a wider dialogue with education stakeholders (including Ministries of Education), civil society organisations and industry. It will take an evidence-based approach to prevent and remediate online hate speech.
