Alumna Aniyyah Fatmah A. Guinar (YES ’17) and his five colleagues on Team Pakigsandurot of Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology won third place out of 60 competing teams from around the world at the Peer2Peer Facebook Global Digital Challenge, held January 26 – 31 at George Washington University.
The team was awarded $1000 in funding. The digital challenge is sponsored by EdVentures Partners in partnership with Facebook and engages university students to create social media campaigns and offline strategies that challenge hateful and extremist narratives.
Team Pakigsandurot entered their #IslamNotPhobia Campaign, a campaign to counter prejudice and hate speech towards Muslims. The campaign used online photo and video competitions and two offline initiatives: Hijab for a Day, where 6 non-Muslim volunteers wore an Islamic head covering for one day, and Hugging Experiment, where two Muslim and two non-Muslim volunteers wore placards in public places around the community to test the impact of religious differences on social engagements.