P2P: Challenging Extremism

[Olivia, It’s Time] Social Media is such a big part of everybody’s life.

[Emiel, Newsworthy] So when I started this project I did not expect this to be as impactful.

[Sana, Imagine] I can very safely say that it has been the most rewarding experience of my life.

[On-screen text] Out of 50 schools, 3 student-led teams were chosen to present their P@P #ChallengeExtremism Projects to a panel of judges at the U.S. Department of State. Rochester Institute of Technology’s Project “It’s Time: #ExOut Extremism” won 1st place.

[Oliva, It’s Time] So It’s Time is an initiative that was created to combat violent extremism through creativity and education.

[Maggie, It’s Time] Our project was developed to sort of give the silent majority a voice. And give them the courage to speaker up. And talk about the issues such as ISIL and violent extremism and negative stereotypes against muslims.

[Kailun, It’s Time] Our snapchat geofilters designed by Kate Sudar. She’s our advertising department head. And she designed that geofilter like an “ExOut” illustration and people can take a photo with that.

[Olivia] We used an art show and an art exhibit as the creative platform. We also have our ExOut initiative, which is a simple hand gesture that symbolizes three things. The first would be to stand against violent extremism. The second is to show individuals that they have the power to ExOut of extremist propaganda online. And the third is to stand and support in solidarity with victims of violent extremism.

[On Screen Text] In second place, Vesalius college (Belgium), created a project called “Newsworthy”

[Nadia, Newsworthy] So newsworthy.eu is a website online.

[Emiel] A platform where we engage in source verification and fact checking.

[Maria, Newsworthy] We see a lot of hate in the media. And it’s so influential. Fear is so powerful!

[Nadia] We want to ensure that we give young people the tools through source verification to be able to understand rhetoric that is out there in the media. So we want to ensure that we provide them with the tools to combat extremism.

[On Screen Text] In 3rd place, Khazer University (Azerbaijan) created a project called “Imagine.”

[Sana, Imagine] We have named the project as Imagine because together we have imagined a world where the kids are protected nurtured and developed in a way that talks about pluralism, multiculturalism and tolerance.

[Narmin, Imagine] Our main idea is [to] create a “Book of Mankind” that have all the material for parents or teachers to use to raise a tolerant child.

[Kamilla, Imagine] And when you educate children, it means that they will have their analytical abilities. So education is very important when it comes to countering extremism.

[On Screen Text] Congratulations to the finalists!