Stichting ERGO Network seeks to address anti-Roma hate speech in several countries across Europe by leveraging existing networks to deliver training, advocacy and research-monitoring work. Their project, Peer Education to Counter Anti-Gypsy Hate Speech (PECAO), consists of a series of activities designed to facilitate better recognition, monitoring, reporting and countering of online hate speech against Roma communities.

The PECAO trains and mentors Roma peer educators, delivering youth-led educational activities in 10 European countries to raise awareness of the impact of anti-Roma sentiment, and to empower young people to recognise and counter it. National monitoring reports are published and supplemented by a larger synthesis report. The research is utilised to develop a practical toolkit on countering online hate speech against Roma people and support advocacy for stronger legislation against anti-Roma hate speech. Online, Stichting ERGO Network will deliver a social media campaign to distribute positive narratives about Roma people.

Key insights

• While monitoring continued through the Covid pandemic, educational activities went virtual.
• This switch to online gave them more insight into online trends in hate speech and how it manifests.
• The grant enabled PECAO to double the number of partner organisations it works with across more countries.
• The project aims to create a database of 150 cases in total, and to achieve a 90% removal rate of any hate speech they discover through monitoring.