John --

In 2019 the far right don’t have to go to the effort they used to in order to radicalise young people. They can now do it from the comfort of their own homes.

Young people are being exposed to more extremist content than ever before. Just a few clicks can take you from a video about Fortnite, to someone telling you that muslims are invading your hometown. A few more clicks and you’re on a 4chan message board, reading about incels and immigrant armies.

Imagine yourself at 14 years old – would you be able to see all of this information, and work out what is true and what isn’t?

That’s where we come in.

Every morning I wake up, go into a school and talk to young people about the dangers of the far-right, and what they can do to resist radicalisation. In the last year myself and the HOPE not hate Charitable Trust's education team have been to 109 different schools, and we’ve spoken to 18,523 young people.

While talking to these young people, we also talk about their role in society. We discuss prejudice and discrimination, citizenship, and the ways in which they can empower own lives. There is no more powerful antidote to hate than giving people agency over the things that affect them.

Today the HOPE Education Fund has been launched to support this work. 

What we do is vital. We are the barrier between young people and a hatred that could so easily consume them, but I can’t say for sure that we’ll be able to have as much impact next year as we did this year. Our funding is shaky – I have headteachers ringing me up begging me to book in another session for next term, but I don’t know that we’ll have the funding to let us do it.