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About Smash Project

  • Writer: La Xixa Creative Social Innovation
    La Xixa Creative Social Innovation
  • May 4, 2025
  • 2 min read

In today’s digital world, young people (especially those with migrant backgrounds) are exposed daily to harmful content, discriminatory narratives, and online hate speech. The SMASH project (Social Media Action against Online Hate Speech) was born in response to this urgent challenge, bringing together partners from Spain, France, Italy, and Lithuania to co-create a powerful, creative, and inclusive methodology to fight back.



A New Approach to Digital Education

What makes SMASH different is its unique blend of artistic expression, critical media literacy, and emotional resilience training. At its core is a participatory method combining:

  • Theatre of the Oppressed, a political theatre form that gives voice to lived experiences

  • Critical Incident Methodology, for exploring intercultural misunderstandings

  • Process-Oriented Psychology, focused on self-awareness and group dynamics

  • The DigComp Framework to guide digital competence

  • The UN Strategy on Hate Speech as a human rights-based reference


Together, these tools form the SMASH method, a flexible and dynamic approach to help young people deconstruct online hate and become confident digital citizens.


Objectives

SMASH aims to:

  • Empower migrant-background youth to critically engage with social media and resist online hate

  • Equip youth workers with innovative tools and strategies rooted in creativity, empathy, and inclusion

  • Promote digital literacy and responsible digital behavior in diverse and vulnerable communities

  • Generate positive narratives and content that challenge discrimination online


SMASH Activities & Results

The project follows a cyclical, youth-led process. It includes:

  • Workshops across the four countries to explore media criticism and content creation

  • Focus groups to evaluate and adapt the method based on real experiences

  • An international blended mobility in Italy, where 20 young people come together to co-create and share

  • Capacity-building workshops for youth workers to replicate and expand the method

  • A final handbook with practical strategies for long-term impact


By the end of the project, SMASH will deliver:

  • A co-created and piloted SMASH method

  • A 60-page handbook for youth workers, translated into five languages

  • National and transnational pilot reports

  • Digital communication assets: 20 videos and 20 memes created by youth

  • Dissemination to over 100,000 people via social media, events, and platforms like EPALE

  • A sustainable, transferable model to counter hate and promote empathy online

 
 
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