The project SISUMMA, ‘Social Initiative of Support to Minorities through Media Activism’, led by the Euro-Arab Foundation and established in Austria, Croatia, Slovakia, Spain and Estonia, keeps its goal of empowering European youth as committed citizens , through an intercultural educational program and training in media literacy, which aims to address discrimination against minorities.
After having conducted different debates, discussion sessions and training courses, and prepared audio-visual material throughout five European countries, which have served to create counter-narratives to combat hate speech and xenophobia, the SISUMMA project moves forward in its phase of construction of a “European Net for a Multicultural Coexistence – ENMC”.
With this net, SISUMMA aims to defend the need to value everyone’s contribution to a multifaceted European identity. This net appeals to make visible the different religious groups, genders and any other sociocultural groups that exist throughout the European Union.
For this, from the SISUMMA project a statement of support for this net is being disseminated. From SISUMMA we call for both civil society organizations and individuals who want to join and collaborate in the constitution and subsequent implementation of the ENMC.
The SISUMMA project, led by the Euro-Arab Foundation, has been funded by the “Europe for Citizens” Programme and is made up of a consortium in which four other organizations from Austria (Südwind), Croatia (Mala Filozofija) Estonia (Peipsi Center for Transboundary Cooperation) and Slovakia (Open Society Foundation-Slovakia) participate.
DECLARATION:
We assume a pluralistic Europe that has in its cultural diversity one of its major features. We are therefore committed to the defense of diversity and multicultural coexistence in Europe.
We point out the need to highlight each and everyone’s contribution to Europe’s multifaceted identity and appeal to a greater visibility of the different ethnic, religious, age, gender and other sociocultural groups that exist throughout the Union territory.
We demand that the Authorities of all Member States ensure the full exercise of civil, political and human rights of citizens of different minorities living in the European Union.
We denounce any xenophobic act that, we understand, should be fought with all legitimate means.
We invite all citizens and organisations to be active in identifying and denouncing any xenophobic or discriminatory speech and to take part in the creation and dissemination of narratives in favor of diversity in Europe, where all sociocultural groups have a place.
We, undersigned, hereby express our support to the present declaration and to the SISUMMA net that will stand for multicultural coexistence and inclusion, networking to defend minorities’ rights through mediactivism.
If you want to help us to promote this, please sign our Declaration here. It will only take two minutes!