New school year, new resolutions! Have you thought about developing new activities with your students around digital citizenship and online hate speech, this year? Then why not consider becoming a SELMA Ambassador?
As such, you will gain recognition as an advocate against hate speech from an international project and will become part of a community of committed education professionals. You will be able to show your commitment to hacking online hate by receiving a digital badge which you can use on your website, blog, and social media profile, and by being featured on our public list of SELMA Ambassadors.
The SELMA Ambassador programme is open to anyone who shows commitment to hacking online hate in three key ways. Short of ideas? Then have a look at our suggestions for actions and activities below!
1. Spread the word
The first condition to become a SELMA Ambassador is to be well informed about the SELMA project and to share and discuss it with your friends, your colleagues and even your wider community, both online and offline. You can do so in many different ways, including the following:
- Tell us what you think about SELMA on social media, using the hashtag #SELMA_eu.
- Give SELMA a shout-out in a newsletter, in a blog article or any platform of your liking.
- Try the SELMA Challenge with your students – 12 simple actions to promote tolerance and empathy – and let us know how that went.
2. Test the Toolkit
You probably already know about the SELMA Toolkit, which offers over 100 free, easy-to-access and customisable resources and activities to discuss online hate speech with young people. Don’t know which one to choose? Below are some suggestions of activities you shouldn’t miss out on:
- Try the “Naming and sorting emotions” activity to discover Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) with your students, and to help them find the words to describe how hate speech makes them feel.
- Here is a fun, engaging and eye-opening activity you can organise with your students… “Guess the protagonist” will allow them to understand how we make assumptions based on stereotypes.
- If your students are older, why not resort to something they love? Memes. By running the “Making memes” and “Meaningful memes” activities, you will give them a better understanding of how to respond to and ultimately disrupt hate messages on their social media channels.
3. Keep it going
After spreading the word about SELMA and organising some Toolkit activities with your students, it is nice to remain engaged, by planning some follow-up activities or events:
- For example, why not organise a school assembly where you can discuss online hate speech with the whole school?
- You could also take some time to browse through the Toolkit some more, to find the perfect activities to run as one-off sessions in your classroom!
- More ambitiously, you can follow one of our pathways of Toolkit activities for education professionals or if you wish to set up a peer-to-peer scheme in your school.
Once you have completed one activity in each category, simply fill in the SELMA Ambassador application form (in English, Danish, German or Greek) and send it to info@hackinghate.eu!
