CONTINUE will support young people suffering from social exclusion to tackle the specific challenges of post-COVID times in terms of staying connected and integrated into European communities. For youth on the margins of society, COVID emergency raised multiple complications such as:- increase of their financial, material and health related vulnerabilities;- loss of their existing connections to the institutions, social care system, job opportunities & decrease of their chances of social integration;- lack of some basic skills and capacities in digital communication cutting them from their social, educational and economic connections.CONTINUE intends to:· understand the main difficulties of marginalised youth during COVID-19 and their vision about the main challenges of post-COVID times. · create a digital framework for supporting a smooth transfer from offline to online exchanges between young people, youth organisations and governance structures· capacity build for young people to delivery local social actions · enhance dialogue between stakeholders, policy makers and youth and improve relevant policyCONTINUE will directly involve young people with migrant and other marginal backgrounds to enhance the interaction between individuals, their communities and the pan-European levels. The main outcomes will be:1. Community Reporting insights and curated results presenting the problems of young people from their perspective 2. Local and pan European participatory and co-design events for discussing needs, local actions, policy recommendations3. Local social actions implemented by the youth4. Pan-European policy recommendations5. CONTINUE online platform will be created for sharing tools, exchanges and learningCONTINUE will be realised by a Consortium working with marginal youth groups, experienced in youth education, community-based activities and co-created policy recommendations.

Historical and political background, the process of peoples’ migration together with wars and conflicts have led to billions of people having to leave their homes to look for another home. Unfortunately, the statistics show devastating numbers of people from countries which are faced with conflicts within their territory. People entering the European Union and many other partner countries are generally considered as a minority and treated with bias due to negative characteristics they are associated with. This attitude is a result of the negative impact of the hate speech, manipulation, and fake news. The two-stage project “Free speech as the bedrock of liberty” was designed to provide the target audience of young people with a greater understanding of the language of hatred in our increasingly socially and culturally diverse society. We seek to develop Youth Work methods that can contribute to solving the problem of hate speech associated with young migrants, minorities and radicalism. There are general objectives for both stage of the project: - to exchange experience between 30 participants by social dialogue and develop new tools and knowledge in media topic; - to make reportage using real people from the real world; - to separate propaganda, fake news, manipulation, learn how to find the truth, where to obtain real information; - to draw a parallel between the two countries (Malta and Ukraine) through two stages of Training Courses;- to identify the causes of the emergence of hate speech and adopt experience of resolution. Both stages accepted participants from each cooperation country. In accordance with the project aim, for both stages, the main target group: - Was without any limit of age; - Have previous experience in social or political activities; - Interested in social life; - Awareness of journalistic principles and photography; - Have some background in creating youth political parties and creating media products; - Have good level of English; - Bring energy and enthusiasm and are prepared to participate in all activities. The participants were selected by partners in cooperation with the applicant and host organisation. The selection process was based on applications (including motivational statement), CV, and Skype interview. The selection process helped to assess real needs, experience, the background of the participants and how relevant to the project was for their future goals and work. The project opened its doors for the representatives with a disadvantaged background such as IDPs, refugees, minority groups (ethnic, LGBTQ, etc.), and those with fewer economic possibilities. We believe these participants helped to reach a broader range of people once they returned home and gave all the participants a better understanding of how hate speech exists in the modern society. We think that this project has had a great impact on the participants, partners and the other target groups involved in the project activities. The impacts on the participants from both stages of the project: - motivate young people to develop the social projects that can reduce the hate speech in society; - encourage young people to spread the ideas of equality and humanity in every country; - cultural exchange between participants to facilitate better understanding and cooperation; - integrate good practices and new methods of non-formal education and social advocacy into daily practices. Participants received new knowledge on contributing to solving the problem of hate speech, issues of radicalism, minorities of regions and political societies. During, the first stage in Malta participants were able to obtain theoretical knowledge, improve their skills in working with information, study methods of counteracting hate speech and learned practical skills necessary to identify and counteract human rights violations. During the second stage in Ukraine, participants were able to demonstrate their skills and knowledge of working with information in practice. They prepared their own media-product about their personal experience of hate speech and developed ways to deal with it. The project provided the target audience with a greater understanding of social and cultural diversity, which strongly connect with the language of hatred and discrimination in our society. We think that the two-stage project “Free speech as the bedrock of liberty” has had a significant impact on the participants' life after the projects due to the role the topics of hate speech and freedom of speech have nowadays.

With the digitalisation of our society, the democratic participation is also increasingly based on the use of digital tools. This important role of ICT in the democratic and social participation has led to the concept of “digital citizenship”. However, data show that there is a digital gap because while young people, considered “digital natives”, are able to use ICT, they do not use them critically and they do not use them to promote their democratic and social participation. The project is aiming to improve this situation through the use of the cyberanimation approach which consists of updating and adapting the educational practices of sociocultural animation to the new paradigms generated by the Information Society Technologies. The project is aiming to develop a methodology, based cyberanimation, that will use the approach in order to address all the relevant issues related with the digital citizenship skills of the young people. On the basis of this methodology, it is going to organise online training of youth workers. The online course will address youth workers all over Europe. After each training, the youth workers are going to implement the skills acquired and organise activities with young people. Also, cybercommunities are going to be organised online and there are going to be organised activities (such as the socio-influencer hub) where young people are going to create online campaigns for social issues that influence their lives. These youth communities and groups are going to be linked with each other through the development of an online platform which will allow young people from all over Europe to see how other groups have organised activities that promote their democratic participation, share expertise and plan common initiatives. The project will organise a final training event for stakeholders in order to multiply the practice and policy recommendations.