Hate Fighters In Action – T2 – Participants Blog

Second training course of ,,Hate fighters in Action’’ project was organized from 28th August till 3th September 2019 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Participants from eight countries came together with shared idea to fight together for better world. During this training we were learning new method for combating hate speech – Karl Poper debate. On the first day we were informed about goal of the training and the hole project, trainers presented us some basic rules and after introduction and team building games we started with learning process. Workshops about hate speech and Hate fighters network were done in interactive way so we all had chance to participate. Rules of Karl Poper debate were complicated to understand at the beginning but as time passed we all understood not only the process but the whole idea behind this method. We were working in small groups while preparing given cases. The nature of Karl Poper debate demanded from us to focus on different angles, besides preparing only affirmative or negative side of the case we also needed to think about strategy of our opponents and possible questions and answers. Cases we got were based on hate speech and discrimination and because of this we were able to understand better what is behind all of that, we did our research and we focused on different aspects and reasons for defending our side. This method is very useful in fight against hate speech because it helps us to fight the source of the problem by understanding what is behind. We came to similar conclusions – hate speech and discrimination are consequences of different stereotypes, out of date studies and fake news and through this method we will be able to fight the root of the problem. Because this was international training we also had a lot of fun in between sessions and in free time, we all became friends and made good connection booth professionally and privately. Our hosts and organizers planed rich program and we had opportunity to learn about different cultures as well. This was great experience and we are very grateful for opportunity to be part of this story.