Julia from Eastside Community Heritage reports on Hate Crime Awareness week, 2016
It was Hate Crime Awareness Week and we all gathered at Dagenham Library to talk with children, parents and carers about bullying and hate crime. We handed out t-shirt, made badges and shared ideas. Here is our video from the day. We hope you enjoy it.
Our diverse community is not always well represented in mainstream media. Social media is a low cost way where young people with disabilities can have a voice.
If you want to be a YouTuber, and you have permission from your parents and carers, make sure you stay safe.
Julia from Eastside reports on the power of vlogging on YouTube
Look at this video by the Mandeville Sisters who live in London.
The Mandeville Sisters are popular YouTubers who talk about all sort things relating to their lives.
Grace Mandeville has a shortened arm.
Listen to her vlog here:
Do you like the humour in this vlog? It had over 982,072 views. What made this vlog so effective?
The fun in vlogs helps make them so popular. Fun is key to the success of social media. Sociability is how social media works. It’s the same in real life. At school, college or parties people usually make new friends through smiling and good humour. For example, if you crack a funny joke at a party, people will laugh and feel good and probably think you are likeable. This is how it works online as well. Fun is an important part of social media because it helps with likeability. Some people call it “positive emotional content”.
Imagine you are a YouTuber.
If people see you smiling and having a good time, they are more likely to “like” your vlog and “subscribe” to your YouTube channel. This creates engagement. Engagement builds followers. More followers means a bigger audience.
If your audience is big enough you can attract sponsors. Have a look at the Mandeville Sisters website: http://www.mandevillesisters.com Do you think they may be sponsored or receiving money to show certain products or brands?
If your YouTube Channel is very popular, you can make money from advertising. Creating a video that “goes viral” offers the best chance of building followers and making money. Here is a example of a famous viral video.
Does it make you smile or laugh?
However, the world of being a blogger can be very demanding.
Think about how long it takes to plan, film and create a vlog. It may take hours and hours to edit a vlog.
Although many YouTube videos look like they are made at home, many young people actually pay others to edit their videos. This can cost of lot of money. Even videos edited at home can take many hours of work and recording and capturing equipment is expensive.
For many families, this is a lot of money.
Vlogging or YouTubing to the general public means you are open to hate crime and bullying. This can have a very bad effect on your life so you need to think carefully about it in advance.
If you look on the Mandeville Sisters website you will see many positive comments such as “also being in one handed woman, I love this video, totally made my day.” However, people can easily leave negative comments and they can even do so anonymously.
While it’s easy to set privacy settings so that all comments are moderated, you still need to read them. And trolling – where people deliberately make hurtful and unpleasant comments online – is a common problem for vloggers.
Negative comments, bullying and hate crime can badly affect your self esteem.
How would you keep safe?
Here are my top tips:
Enjoy vloggers like the Mandeville Sisters but remember to stay safe.
Julia from Eastside Community Heritage met with the Advisory Partners. Here is her report.
The Advisory Parters is a self-advocacy group for young people and adults who have a learning disability.
They meet every two weeks in Barking and Dagenham.
They are a very friendly group dedicated to helping people with disabilities.
They review easy read material so that people with a learning disability get the right information and support.
They campaign for better, safer and fairer lives for people with disabilities.
How can we make ourselves and everyone else safe? By reporting people who bully. We have listed some ways to report bullying below.
There are many different ways to report bullying and hate crime. We’ve listed some below.
You can report a hate crime or incident to the police.
You can visit your local Police Station in person.
You can report it to the police online by using the True Vision website http://www.report-it.org.uk. You can ask a friend or carer to help you answer the questions on the site if you need help.
If it is an emergency you can call 999
You can use a website developed by the Police to report hate crime.
The website is called True Vision and you can access the site using this address: http://www.report-it.org.uk/
You can report a hate crime using an online form. Here is the link to the firm: http://report-it.org.uk/your_police_force
If you need help, a friend or carer can help you fill out the form:
You can contact the council in your borough.
Some councils provide information and helpful telephone numbers on their websites.
Some councils have Hate Crime Officers.
Some boroughs have special services or units that deal with Hate Crimes or Hate Incidents.
Some people like to work with reporting centres. You can contact a reporting centre by visiting a reporting centre in person or talking to them over the phone.
Places like the Citizens Advice Bureau are reporting centres. Some charities and volunteer organisations are reporting centres as well.
Many people like reporting centres because they think they friendly, understanding and useful.
Reporting Centres work with other people and organisations like the police, schools, councils and housing associations.
Stop Hate UK is a charity that want to stop discrimination and hate crime and help victims.
You can contact them in all sort of ways.
You can ring them or text them or chat to them online.
You can contact them 24 hours a day.
Here is the link to their website: http://www.stophateuk.org/report-learning-disability-hate-crime/
The word “app” is short for application.
An app or application can allows you to report a hate crime or bullying incident using a smart phone or tablet.
Here are some apps you may find useful.
Online technologies and the Internet offer a great deal to young people with disabilities. However, Internet Safety is very important as well. Hayley, Georgina and Julia report.
Pictured: The MET Police (rear), Georgina (front left), Hayley (volunteer AbPhab and Eastside Community Heritage), Julia (Eastside Community Heritage) and Anne-Marie Haxel (Safer Neighbourhood Board Officer, Barking and Dagenham)
This month we addressed the Safer Neighbourhood Board meeting and we talked about disability hate crime and bullying.
Julia told the group that technology was really good for young people because it helped them stay connected with their world. She said technology and IT skills enabled young people to study, work and participate in activities.
Hayley said that technology was important but we must also teach people how to stay safe online and learn how to report bullying. Hayley told the group about our video project. She said our videos are encourage young people to share their knowledge with other young people.
Georgina talked about technology and risk. She said that young people with disabilities need, and want, the same chances in life as young people without disabilities. Georgina said that many parents are worried by online bullying, grooming or stalking so they limit their children from using technology. But Georgina was worried that by limiting their use of the Internet, parents were limiting their children. She said that young people with disabilities need education, training and support so they can use the Internet AND stay safe.
Georgina also said that young people make the best teachers. Young people like to learn from other young people and they share their ideas on places like YouTube or Instagram. She said that many parents and carers could learn from their children and other young people in the community.
Everyone liked our ideas and they clapped at the end of our talk. It was a really wonderful session and we thank the Safer Neighbourhood Board for letting us speak to them.
