Peer to Peer: Facebook Global Digital Challenge wraps fall 2017 term

On January 30, the fall 2017 Peer to Peer (P2P): Facebook Global Digital Challenge final competition was held in Washington, D.C., at the National Union Building. This program was sponsored by Facebook and managed by EdVenture Partners.

Over the last two to three months, 85 student teams participated in this sixth iteration of the P2P program, competing for the best creative social and digital media campaign to counter hate and extremism.

A whopping 35 million impressions were garnered by student teams this term alone.

The finals featured campaign highlights from the top four teams, followed by a question-and-answer series with the judging panel. At the culmination of the event, the panel of senior level officials, experts and practitioners announced the winners as follows:

First place: Design Akademie Berlin (Germany) — Don't Be Silent Second place: BRAC University (Bangladesh) — Get Up Speak Up Third place: Haigazian University (Lebanon) — Rise Lebanon Fourth place: Federal University of Pernambuco (Brazil) — Com Fio

Each of these teams presented their recommendations, including what they learned in each of their communities about winning the hearts and minds with this important work.

Design Akademie Berlin’s winning campaign, Don't Be Silent, focuses on empowering the silent majority to speak out against hateful rhetoric. According to the team, hate speech against refugees “has exploded on social media,” relative to Germany’s one million newcomers, as they have welcomed more refugees into the country than any other in the EU. The team focused on a strong call to action — image and hashtag campaigns on Facebook and Instagram, as well as a video series titled “Face the Truth” that attempts to dispel stereotypes about Syrian refugees — to create a sense of urgeny to #actnow and speak out.

BRAC University from Bangladesh developed the Get Up Speak Up initiative and empowered youth to proactively engage in discussion about countering hate in a series of workshops called Matters of Faith. They created an online forum to provide a protected platform to further this discussion — seeking solutions to such local issues as religious intolerance, better educating youth on extremist issues and experiences with discrimination.

With 18 different religious sects which affect Lebanon in many ways, Rise Lebanon seeks to change the method of conversation regarding interfaith dialogue and build understanding between people of different backgrounds. Haigazian University students, as part of this initiative, educated local society that one can express an opinion while adhering to the RISE acronym: talk and listen to one another while R-Respecting I-Individuality and S-Showing E-Empathy. In essence, RISE above hate while advancing the Lebanese multi-religious existence peacefully.

Students from the Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil learned during their research that 503 Brazilian women are victims of some form of violence every hour. They developed a campaign called Com Fio to bring awareness to the fact that violence against women is a problem that should be addressed for and by everyone. They implemented tactics that centered on positive values that promote community-building, such as trust, responsibility, equality and respect. They also developed a series of video interviews with several women who work with or were assisted by the Center of Cape Women, a feminist organization whose mission is to support and assist women in vulnerable conditions.

In addition to these four top finalists, Facebook also recognized six honorable mention campaigns.

These schools were selected to receive a $500 award and an additional $750 Facebook ad credit to continue their work beyond the fall 2017 P2P campaign (in alphabetical order):

Ahlia University (Bahrain): Together SAFE Artesis Plantlijn University College (Belgium): Outnumber Middle East Technical University (Turkey): Kız Başına Notre Dame University (Lebanon): Box Out Extremism Uganda Muslim Youth Development Forum (Uganda): Still Standing / Amani Leo University of Ghent (Belgium): Tipi'sch Gents

To date, over 10,000 student participants have implemented the P2P program over 600 times at over 375 universities in 75 countries and 40 U.S. states. Since its inception, P2P has generated over 200 million combined online and offline impressions and has earned over 600 combined pieces of local, regional, national and international press.

For more information on EdVenture Partners’ Peer to Peer programs, read more here.