Awareness campaign
The awareness campaign was initially intended to feed opportunities for legal action. The strategic litigation required discretion, so the awareness campaign was filled in differently and was disconnected from the timeline for the legal action. The creation of the awareness campaign video’s functioned as an opportunity for coalition building in itself.
The idea for the awareness campaign was one short video that aims at raising awareness about the consequences of islamophobia. The main target audience would be victims of Islamophobia and discriminations while at the same time a broader audience would be reached. The video was to be disseminated through social media via our own network and various partners and partner organizations. The main message was that anti-Muslim discriminations in any situation, including schools and workplaces, are not only socially unacceptable but also constitute a violation of basic human rights and therefore is open to legal action. The goal was to produce a multilingual video, at least in French and Dutch for national use and preferably also in English for broader dissemination (to reduce costs, a single basic version with different subtitles may be the best option).
These videos aim at breaking common stereotypes about Muslim men and women. They both are intended for a large public, they portray a stereotype breaking image of a young Muslim woman in one video, and of a young Muslim man in the other, and carry in them an empowering message for Muslim youth.
The written message at the end of the short video reads as follows: ‘break stereotypes, fight racism’. This slogan is followed by the message ‘like, share, follow, but don’t stop here. The hashtag that goes with the campaign is #changehappensoffline. The idea is to make people aware that action is needed: as a victim you can (and should) report incidents of discrimination and islamophobia, and as a bystander you should definitely act as well. Depending on the timing of the legal action, the dissemination of the short videos can go hand in hand with communication about the course and/or outcome of the case.