EU-funded HATE-LESS project moves into youth-led media phase

By AI, Created 11:33 AM UTC, May 20, 2026, /AGP/ – The Erasmus+ HATE-LESS project has entered a second phase focused on youth-led videos, advocacy and media literacy training across five European countries. The initiative has already published a toolkit for youth workers and says its website has reached 3,543 people.

Why it matters: - The HATE-LESS project is trying to give youth workers and young people practical tools to push back against hate speech and disinformation online. - The second phase shifts the effort from research and training into wider use, with youth-led media and policy advocacy intended to reach schools, communities and public authorities. - The project is designed to support media literacy, intercultural dialogue and democratic participation across Europe.

What happened: - The Erasmus+ project HATE-LESS announced that it has moved into its second phase after completing development and testing of its educational framework. - European Youth4Media Network e.V. in Germany coordinates the project. - The project is being implemented in Germany, Estonia, France, Spain and Cyprus. - The consortium published the HATE-LESS toolkit for youth workers and trainers after completing the first half of the project. - The project is co-funded by the German National Agency, JUGEND für Europa, and the European Union.

The details: - The first phase produced a Methodological Guideline for Participatory Actions and a toolkit focused on participatory action research and video production. - The materials were validated in transnational training sessions in Tallinn and refined after feedback from all partners. - The toolkit includes interactive exercises meant to help educators and youth workers turn media literacy topics into hands-on learning. - The implementation phase uses a 25-hour participatory training model built as a cascade system. - Eighteen youth workers completed the transnational training and will now train 120 additional professionals per partner country. - The project says the training is meant to standardize a methodology for deconstructing disinformation and hate speech across the consortium. - The second phase will center on youth-produced Participatory Videos covering digital well-being, migration narratives and a more inclusive digital future. - The project plans to produce at least 15 participatory videos. - Laboratories supporting the video work will involve at least 240 young people per country. - Participatory monitoring tools in the project’s repository include Stories of Most Significant Change and Before and After Maps. - The project says these tools will help measure how participants improve in managing and analyzing digital information. - The creative outputs will feed an Advocacy Campaign and a Youth Manifesto aimed at improving media literacy in youth work at policy level. - The campaign is intended to reach local, national and European authorities. - The project says its dissemination goal was to reach more than 700 people. - The project says it has reached 3,543 people through its website so far, including municipal authorities, civil society organizations and local stakeholders. - The consortium includes European Youth4Media Network in Germany, EESTI PEOPLE TO PEOPLE in Estonia, MITRA FRANCE in France, Evolutionary Archetypes Consulting SL in Spain and WAVES FOUNDATION FOR GLOBAL EDUCATION in Cyprus. - More information is available on the project’s official website. - The toolkit and methodological guideline were published on the project’s results page, including the Methodological Guidelines for Participatory Actions.

Between the lines: - The project is moving from capacity-building toward visible public output, which suggests a push to prove that training can translate into youth-created content and policy engagement. - The cascade training model signals an attempt to multiply impact quickly across multiple countries without centralizing every training session. - The emphasis on videos, manifesto work and advocacy suggests HATE-LESS is aiming to make media literacy feel participatory rather than purely classroom-based.

What’s next: - Youth participants across the partner countries will begin producing participatory videos. - The advocacy campaign and Youth Manifesto are expected to follow as the project scales its messaging to policymakers and stakeholders. - The consortium will continue distributing the toolkit and methodology through its partner network and public results page.

The bottom line: - HATE-LESS is turning a media literacy project into a broader youth-led campaign against online hate and disinformation, with training, content creation and policy advocacy now moving in tandem.