The power of communication to overcome discrimination
Hi! I am Leyre, from Spain, and this is my friend Roberto, from Peru. He is studying a Masters in Economics in the University of Barcelona in Spain.
Many latinos like him are facing discrimination in Spain, having to stand racist comments, isolation and rejection from society.
But we believe that the Spanish youth can aquire the power to change this through communication, letting love and peace win.
Hate penetrates as roots, putting people apart. But we should not search for differences and weaknesses in others to harm them.
We should rather appreciate Spanish's and Latino's virtues and search for ways to collaborate, as well as be humble and grateful for what we learn, turning bad experiences into a valuable lesson.
Therefore, we have to plant the seeds of love and respect in order to grow the flower of peace.
Kindness is what brings us together in equality; no matter ethnicity, religion, ideology, culture or social class. If you live respecting other’s condition, you will respect yourself.
Hate will always win, so we should not fall in its trap. Kindness is a free choice and wins over any dispute.
Thanks to education and communication we can create an understanding dialogue and erase prejudices and discrimination; and that gives us power.
All of this leads to peace, allowing us forget distinctions and uniting us as a family called humanity.
This is the power of communication to overcome discrimination.
Translated by: Nadia Ikram and Leyre Rebollo Blanco
How to use this story in a classroom?
The authors of the video created didactical material (click to download or find it below) to start a constructive dialogue.
Discrimination is a topic worth to tackle in classrooms or any other educational spaces to open a mind-changing dialogue around it. This lesson plan created by the authors of the digital story, Nadia Ikram and Leyre Rebollo Blanco, students from UCLL Leuven, will help educators to do so.
In words of the authors:
"The dialogical methodology used in this workshop will give students the opportunity to put critical thinking into practice, while improving their communicative skills and empowering them to take action from and through the word. Secondly, the dialogue will focus on culture and discrimination, what will broaden their knowledge in this field. [...] the collaborative learning will let students augment their appreciation of cultural differences, promoting cultural integration. Besides, this workshop may contribute to the achievement of SDG 10 Reduce inequalities of UNESCO and to the fulfillment of Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNESCO, 1948) by contributing to equality.
Moreover, the use given to media – the video and PowerPoints displayed – will increase people’s knowledge and awareness, what will empower them to fight agains discrimination in their surroundings. In this way, this lesson and this workshop will contribute to teach students how to care for others through dialogue, what can humanize and liberate people as proposed by Freire (1993).
Finally, we would want to extend a word of thanks to Comundos for the lessons that we received from them in digital stories, without which the creation of this workshop would have not been possible".
Here you can appreciate some photos of the implementation of the workshop in Leuven by its authors on December 2017:
