Loesje Berlin

 

The DecontRamination app is now available to download for Android phones. Soon it will also be available for iphone.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.decontramination&hl=en_US&gl=US

Check out and explore the DecontRamination map and upload your photos of your city's streets if you come accross:

-hateful graffiti or writing

-Already neutralised or decontRaminated hate or discriminatory speech.

Take a picture and then send it through the app. Please be sure to include the location and to identify the typology that can be seen in your image. You can always find examples when looking through the DecontRamination Map. We look forward to your contributions and bringing more visibility to the mapping-out of the life of our streets.

 

 

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Although it may feel like the last year has put a complete stop to many activities and projects, Loesje Berlin has been working diligently on both the transnational youth initiative and the strategic partnership project, along with her partners, LjubljanaPride and I.N.A.R. Both projects are focused on addressing and actively combating hate speech in public spaces.  Please check out the “decontRamination” website, https://decontramination.org/, and help us by uploading pictures of “hateful graffiti or messages” you may have run into while moving along and traveling around your cities. Not only will you be helping us in documenting hateful speech in public spaces, you will give an opportunity for artists to creatively “decontRaminate” and transform hateful messages into messages of inclusion and embracing diversity. If you happen to see street art, graffiti, and messages that are already promoting and empowering cultural diversity and acceptance, please make sure to upload them on to the website as well. It is also important for us to provide visibility to how artists are thoughtfully and creatively transforming messages of hate.

If you haven't already, please check out our latest interview with italian journalist, Claudia Sparavigna, to commemorate this year’s World Press Freedom Day, as part of one of our activities for our transnational youth initiative. You will get some insight into the important role journalists have in providing accurate information and how human rights and LGBTIQ+ issues are being portrayed in an Italian media context. 

Watch at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7iftDAriQw

 

As our contributions to these two projects continue, we are excited to announce our most recently approved strategic partnership project, “Write Your Creative Story”, which aims to improve the quality of youth work across the EU by developing skills and inclusion through creativity and arts. By sharing our creative text writing methodology and understanding the power of storytelling, we will develop and enhance skills and competences for educators and youth workers including but not limited to social workers, and artists working with youth. Participants will gain digital competences through a Digital Toolbox and will cooperate in creating a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). This project partnership includes Info Front - Prilep from Macedonia, Asociacion Cazalla Intercultural from Spain, and Storytelling Centre, from the Netherlands. We are extremely motivated to get this project rolling, so stay tuned for when we start inviting you to our activities and trainings connected with this new project.

 

 

 

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From the beginning of 2020 Loesje Berlin is starting two new long-term projects: the Strategic Partnership “How much Freedom of Speech can a democracy tolerate” with the partner organizations Ljubljana Pride and INAR (Irish Network Against Racism). Ljubljana Pride acts as a youth, voluntary, independent and non-profit civil society organization established with the aim of safeguarding the human rights and interests of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) population of Slovenia. INAR is a national network of over 100 anti-racism civil society organisations which aims to work collectively to highlight and address racism in Ireland. In this partnership, our main aim is in combating hate speech that occurs in public spaces. We will for two years combine the strengths of each organization to equip youth workers with the skills to understand the roots of hate speech and discrimination, staying critical and collectively coming up with actions to transform any hate speech that can potentially be seen in our local environments. 

 

This project will be running simultaneously with a transnational youth initiative that is in cooperation with Ljubljana Pride. In this youth initiative, we are aiming to empower youth to actively address hate speech seen in public spaces. You can see a short film from our first project training activity here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGGdmgFKDbw&ab_channel=LoesjeBerlin

 

Through the dissemination and exchanges of Loesje’s creative text writing methodology and the “Decontramination” methodology shared by Ljubljana Pride, we will work to actively combat hate speech in the streets. Decontramination stands for changing hateful messages into loving positive ones. Both projects are funded by the Erasmus + program.

Ljubljana Pride: www.ljubljanapride.org/en/
INAR:inar.ie

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Loesje in Berlin is active since 2005. Every year we do many activities in Berlin as well as international activities and projects, like training courses, to boost creativity, strenghten human rights and connect people over borders. We offer creative text writing workshops at our office in Alt-Treptow in German, English, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Swedish and other languages.

To sign up for our mailing list, send an email to imagination@loesje.org

You can also find us on

Facebook: www.facebook.com/LoesjeBerlin

Instagram: www.instagram.com/loesje_berlin/

YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCwMtdTG053JsN7oPjDpJ23A

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