Are you ready to hack the SELMA Toolkit?

The SELMA strapline is “Hacking Hate”.

Whilst hacking has come to be negatively associated with online activities (breaking security to gain information or advantage), the SELMA hacking concept builds on the fundamental concept of hacking as described by Catherine Bracey. She argues:

"Hacking is any amateur innovation on an existing system, and it is a deeply democratic activity. It's about critical thinking. It's about questioning existing ways of doing things. It's the idea that if you see a problem, you work to fix it, and not just complain about it."

In the same way, the SELMA project sees hacking as a set of activities that lead to a call to action. This implies that YOU can define your own pathways to navigate through the SELMA themes, focus activities and resources.

When hacking an online hate issue, students should be given opportunities to:

• IDENTIFY issues when they arise.
• ACKNOWLEDGE the impact that those issues cause.
• EXPLORE those issues and how they might emanate and appear using real world examples.
• UNDERSTAND the impact of those issues and how they contribute to the problem.
• CREATE potential solutions using a wide range of skills and agency.
• APPLY those solutions choosing the right context and ecosystems through effective calls to action.
• DISRUPT the factors or agents that are contributing to the issue.
• CHANGE the ecosystem positively; evidence and celebrate impact.

To make this happen, the SELMA Toolkit contains a comprehensive set of tools, presented in nine themes, each containing a variety of SEL, Media Literacy, Citizenship, and Peer Mentoring focus activities.

We invite you to hack the Toolkit!

You can start with ‘Theme 1’ and work your way through the activities, as we have presented them here. Or you can hack the Toolkit, and adapt it to your specific target group of children/adolescents and the concrete needs they have in understanding, dealing with and fighting online hate speech.