The DAISSy Research Group of the Hellenic Open University (HOU) participated at the kickoff meeting of the european, two-year project “Advanced Media Literacy Education to counter online hate-speech” (AMeLiE). AmeLiE is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union under Action KA2 Strategic Partnerships in the field of scholl education, and its official launch took place online on January 13th and 14th 2021.

The AMeLiE project main target is to address the issue of online hate-speech. The project is being implemented by a consortium of six (6) partners from five (5) countries, namely: Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania. The partnership is composed by sectoral organisations-national and international education networks and organisations;  VET providers; one University and two European networks.

During the meeting, the partners discussed the Work Packages (WPs) and possible challenges, defined the priorities and set the implementation action plan for the first year. Specifically, on the first day, the discussion focused on a general overview of the project that took place by the Italian Coordinator, EGINA; the introduction to the already successfully tested methodologies, i.e. HOU’s Sonet-BULL platform and the Parole Ostili material, as well as an online training  for the needs analysis research part. The second day included the presentation of information on management and communication activities, with emphasis on the Quality Assurance (QA) plan developed by HOU, and the dissemination and exploitation activities including the presentation of the project visual  identity package.

The DAISSy Research Group of the HOU will participate in all project WPs by piloting the AMeLiE activities in Greece, and furthermore by Leading the a. development of the Virtual Network between schools for the contrast to online hate-speech; b. technical development of the Platform, c. QA plan, tools and activities.