CESIE stands in solidarity with black communities here in Italy and all over the world.

We are saddened by recent events; however, we are well aware of their frequent, systematic and wide-spread nature, since we do not need to go that far to witness racist behaviours.

We have always been carrying out initiatives and activities aimed at raising awareness of xenophobia, racism and discrimination issues and at promoting equality and fair opportunities for all.

We have been taking time to reflect on our work so as to strengthen our actions and build up a stakeholder network that may maximise their positive impact.

We believe we have an important role to play in educating others on the values and principles of human rights for all. We acknowledge that words alone are not enough and we will strive to challenge racism and be actively anti-racist through our projects and initiatives, standing united with those who are advocating for change.

We will talk to youths and children, but at the same time, we are aware that in order to make change happen we must identify institutional racism supported by our Governments.

Therefore, we must speak up and expose the deafening silence of European and Italian authorities over the atrocious conditions African migrants are being held in Libyan detentions camps. We must discuss about how the Italian immigration policies and laws, which have entered into force in the last 20 years, have eliminated any opportunity to apply for a legal migration procedure, forcing thousands of people to die at sea while trying to cross the Mediterranean.

We must start a serious debate on Jus Soli reform as Italian citizenship is still being denied to people who are born in this country because the establishment does not want to acknowledge the existence of non-white Italians.

We must deal with all these issues, otherwise we won’t be able to talk about George Floyd.

#blacklivesmatter. The world is only one creature.

CESIE is carrying out numerous projects and initiatives aimed at building an intercultural dialogue between the people who live in the city, the fight against racism, xenophobia and right-wing extremism.

Below, the most relevant.

CEAR – Community engagement against radicalisation

The project aims at preventing and countering violent extremism and radicalisation by supporting three types of community: organisations of families of radicalised people, youth organisations and Muslims Communities.

The main objective is to systematize a practical model of community and civic engagement that can enhance civil society’s skills and capacity to prevent and counter radicalisation. Besides that, the CEAR Consortium is now working on the development and implementation of 3 digital toolkits for the above-mentioned communities.

The 3 toolkits will provide useful techniques and strategies on how to tackle the spreading of hate and violence within local communities, empowering communitiy leaders and local associations and enhancing their ability to launch an awereness-raising campaign against all kinds of violent extremism, be it political or religious.

For further information, please contact Guido Savasta: guido.savasta@cesie.org

Read more about CEAR: cesie.org/en/project/cear/.

D.O.B.T. - Do One BRAVE Thing

The project aims at empowering young people to challenge extremist narratives they experience in their daily lives and to enable young people to develop counter-narrative campaigns to challenge hate speech and extremist rhetoric online.

What have we been doing in the past months?

• We developed and published the “Check before you share guide”, where numerous tips on how to assess the information we exposed to.
• We designed a brand new poster and guide on how to develop counter and alternative narratives campaigns to ensure maximum outreach and efficiency while guaranteeing the safety of the campaigners
• We collected inspiring stories of young people and groups who brought positive change in their own communities. You can read their stories  here and watch our Campaign Tutorial Video!

If you want to gain more knowledge on how you can start your own campaign against radicalisation and extremism, do not forget to visit our website and the several resources made available in our campaigns webpages.

For more info about the project, please contact Erica caredda: erica.caredda@cesie.org.

Read more about the project:  cesie.org/en/project/dobt/.

LIAISON – Mutual Learning for Intercultural Appreciation and Strengthened Organisational Networks

LIAISON is built upon a collective work to design interventions aiming at preventing racism & xenophobia, with a focus on anti-Muslim hatred.

The project aims at building the capacity of local Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), migrant associations (MAs) and Muslim communities to work together to promote the sharing of skills fostering cross-cultural mutual knowledge and respect.

The active involvement of the aforementioned groups in the promotion of joint initiatives aimed at scaling up the mutual learning methodology and at raising awareness on its potential to prevent hatred, will go through the set-up of the Intercultural City Committees composed by representatives of CSOs, MAs, community leaders and local authorities to support LIAISON’s activities and design of an Intercultural City Cooperation Model: proposing a sustainable cooperation road-map bringing together third sector, local authorities and local communities. It will be composed by transnational guidelines for the third sector and policy recommendation for local authorities

For more information: cesie.org/en/project/liaison.

Please contact Erica Caredda: erica.caredda@cesie.org.

MEDIS – Mediterranean Inclusive schools

MEDIS aims at promoting social inclusion for migrant students and intercultural education in primary and secondary schools in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, by training teachers and educators on the so-called "good practices for inclusive and intercultural schools”. Through the MEDIS programme, they will be able to put these intercultural activities into practice in class or in the whole school.

Due to the lockdown imposed by the Covid-19 emergency, curricular and extra-curricular activities planned at school suffered from changes and suspensions, causing severe damage in the school community and especially to the ones who already lived in vulnerable situations. For this reason, we continue to support the schools of the MEDIS network and to work for integrating new ones for the next school year. So that no one is left behind, neither during nor after the crisis.

If you want to take part in the project activities or want to receive more information, please contact Francesca Barbino, francesca.barbino@cesie.org.

Read more about the project: cesie.org/en/project/medis.

(Re)think Before Acting – Narrative alternative all'estremismo violento

It aims to prevent vulnerable people from embarking on radicalization processes and to support the de-radicalization of radicalized individuals, through the promotion of critical thinking based on human rights and the dissemination of alternative narratives on social networks and in local communities.

Partners from Portugal, Hungary, France, Italy, Sweden and Romania have developed 7 online and offline media campaigns, on topics such as: critical thinking and correct information, activism and sense of belonging within a community, Islam and fundamental rights, risks associated with extremism and in particular with far-right groups.

In recent weeks, with the "Violent Far-Right" Facebook campaign, we gave voice to former neo-Nazis and to organizations which help individuals to get out of extremism, warning our users about risks and consequences of far-right extremism. We also observed and commented on the attempts to manipulate the Covid-19 emergency by extremist groups from all over Europe in order to gain consensus, trying to provide tools in order to countering them. Furthermore, with the new campaign "Community Heroes", we want to provide examples of active citizenship, sense of identity and attachment to the Muslim community for young people, convinced that activism in the local community is a good way to be integrated and to grow within society.

If you want to take part in the project activities or want to receive more information, please contact Francesca Barbino,  francesca.barbino@cesie.org.

Read more about (RE)think: cesie.org/en/project/rethink-isf/.

SAAMA - Strategie di Accompagnamento all’Autonomia per Minori Accolti

It aims to build an effective and sustainable model for unaccompanied minors in order to facilitate their pathway to autonomy. It reinforces the relationship of minors to promote the path of inclusion (social capital) and at the same time it increases their personal and social competences (psychological capital).

Activities at schools, intercultural workshops, rights and citizenship, video and theater become a place of experimentation for an intercultural society.

The transversal objective of all actions is the construction of a society of “Tomorrow” in which young Italians and foreigners can spend time together talking and reducing mutual mistrust.

Read more about the project: minoristranieri-neveralone.it/progetto/saama.

For more info about the project, please contact Daria La Barbera: daria.labarbera@cesie.org.

sCAN Platform Experts and Tools: Specialised Cyber Activists Network

sCAN ended a few months ago and it aimed to tackle hate speech on the internet by adopting a multidimensional approach, which includes monitoring, analysis, training, dissemination and advocacy actions.

It has allowed a large coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to take part in exercises to monitor hate speech online.

Project partners  trained moderators of network contents through the diffusion of online training courses in Europe. Finally, it has been created an advanced course on comparative monitoring of the presence of hate messages online and the application of the Code of Conduct by companies in the IT sector.

For more information, please contact Erica Caredda: erica.caredda@cesie.org.

Read more about the project: cesie.org/en/project/scan.