- Country
- Spain
- Target Audience
- Online community
- Youth/pupils/students
- key themes association
- Alternative and counter narratives
- Social cohesion and polarisation
- Year
- 2018
Organisation
Awake the World was a university project, without legal status. University students from diverse backgrounds organised the project.
Type of Organisation: Other
Project description
Awake the World aims to counter radical and violent extremism through online and offline actions.
We challenge religion- or culture-based prejudices, promote tolerance and social coexistence, actively counter islamophobia, and employ social networks in a bid to raise awareness.
Awake the World’s activities are designed to reduce discrimination, to demonstrate that the so-called West is not at war with Islam while invalidating the narrative of them and us, and finally, to lessen cultural marginalisation.
These activities address the roots of radicalisation: social and political factors as well as cultural and identity crises.
Deliverables
Awake the World aims to foster tolerance and raise awareness of stereotypes among 16-to-25 year-old Spanish-resident students. To this end, we held talks and conferences in high schools and universities.
Training module
Informative talks for high schoolers: Awake the World visited Madrid-based high schools, holding discussions on topics like perception and reality, refugees and immigration, the European Union and the Middle East, integration, and racism and islamophobia. At the beginning and end of each talk, we surveyed the students to assess the impact of the talk. The results were later used to produce online content for our social media profile.
Conferences for university students: conferences and debates were held on religion, culture, tolerance, integration, terrorism and many other topics.
Online content: we produced infographics and alternative narratives, such as the testimonials provided by youngsters through our Citizen X project. Citizen X is a Facebook-based initiative open to all who wish to share their experiences in dealing with stereotypes. Most of the youngsters sharing their stories were Muslims living in Spain who had experienced islamophobia.
