The overall objective of the  Speak Out project, funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020) is to improve the online environment for LGBTI people in 9 EU Member States: Bulgaria, Belgium, Portugal, Estonia, Spain, The United Kingdom, Hungary, Lithuania and Latvia. The project is planning on creating training materials on anti-LGBTI crime and hate speech to help professionals working with victims of this type of crime, as well as informing LGBTI people about the types of online hate crimes, how to recognize and report them.

Activities:

• Conducting a study targeting three different target groups – LGBTI people and their experience with online hate speech, representatives of law enforcement and victim support centers and their experience on the topic, as well as research into the use of restorative justice among professionals
• Development of resources, including website with information on anti-LGBTI hate crimes (https://www.speakout-project.eu/en/ ), development of training materials for dealing with anti-LGBTI hate crime cases for law enforcement agencies, as well as the publication of a Handbook on Restorative Justice and its implementation in cases of anti-LGBTI hate crimes.
• Involvement of professionals from all over Europe through the organization of an international conference in Sofia in October 2020, at which experts from all over Europe will discuss the topics of restorative justice and anti-LGBTI hate crime.

Duration of the project: 20 months (February 2019 – October 2020)

 

Partners:

 

Bilitis Foundation, Bulgaria

Associação ILGA Portugal, Portugal

Çavaria, Belgium

Estonian Human Rights Centre, Estonia

FELGTB, Spain

Galop, UK

Háttér Society, Hungary

LGL, Lithuania

MOZAIKA, Latvia