The culture of hate has crept deep into every pore of society, and youth settings are no exception. As youth workers, youth leaders, trainers, activists, and experts, we have not only the power, but also the responsibility to respond to hate speech when it happens in a group of young people. All these “jokes” and comments where the young person “is just repeating what they learned at home” and/or “doesn’t mean it seriously” perpetuate social inequalities stemming from the systems of oppression.

Quite often, though, we are unable to invest the time to respond to hate, either because we are burdened with the planned outcomes of the activities, or because we simply do not know how to. This workshop strives to tackle these issues by exploring the possibilities of overcoming hate speech via the use of transformative practices. It introduces practices that aim not only to react to hate speech that only causes the person to abstain from using the hate speech in that particular environment, but to start a process of transformation in order to overcome the hate itself.

The workshop is open to everyone who works with young people.