Our Mission

Until every eligible voter is given the tools to understand how their government works and how to identify disinformation for themselves, extreme views and conspiracy theories will continue to grow, and democracy will suffer. Founded in 2015 to protect and amplify democracy, Shout Out UK (SOUK) is a social enterprise on a mission to ensure that political and media literacy education is available to everyone, regardless of their socio-economic background, ethnicity, or gender and safeguard democracy and our rights for generations to come. We have worked with young people across the UK, ensuring they develop critical thinking skills, analytical abilities and confidence, empowering them to be democratically engaged and informed citizens.

Our Story

Founded by Matteo Bergamini in 2015, Shout Out UK (SOUK) is a multi-award winning creative social enterprise on a mission to defend and amplify democracy by ensuring all citizens understand how their government functions through political literacy, are inoculated from disinformation and misinformation through media literacy and are given a chance to have a say in how their country is run through our own youth voice platform and various programmes.

SOUK has run some of the largest city-wide voter registration and voter awareness campaigns in the democratic world. Furthermore, its education programmes on Media & Political Literacy have been utilised to combat disinformation and extremism nationwide through Prevent, as well as translated into various languages and utilised in multiple countries.

SOUK has worked with a number of clients, including, but not limited to; the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, OFCOM, the Greater London Authority, the US Embassy in London, the US State Department and NATO.

Our Awards

  • Best Media & Political Literacy Training Programmes 2023, Awarded by SME News
  • Most Impactful Company to Work For 2023, Awarded by Impact Fifty
  • Democracy Pioneer 2020, Awarded by Nesta
  • Youth-Led Award 2018, Awarded by The British Youth Council.
  • Harrow Business Den Winner of 2016, Awarded by Harrow Council.

Advocacy

Launched in January 2021, SOUK is currently providing the secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Political Literacy, a coalition of MPs and Lords with the aim of bringing political and media literacy education to every single young person in Britain, regardless of socio-economic status.

Our Theory of Change

The profile of someone that is at risk of radicalisation tends to be someone that feels isolated and powerless in society and is also someone unable to tell fact from fiction, making them easy prey for disinformation propagators online.This is compounded by a lack of information on how their democracy functions, how they can get involved as well as a clear understanding of their collective democratic journey.

Shout Out UK delivers bespoke Media and Political Literacy programmes and campaigns, that support beneficiaries’ understanding and engagement with their democracy, confidence, emotional resilience, critical thinking, and which: instil a sense of belonging that helps counter the narratives which nefarious actors use to groom and target vulnerable individuals online.

  1. Demonstrate an increase in knowledge amongst project participants about media and political literacy, and extremist rhetoric online and offline.
  2. Improve knowledge of practical and critical thinking skills to protect oneself from radical groups online and offline.
  3. Enhance participants’ ability to express their opinions constructively and productively.
  4. Enhanced understanding of the mechanics of their government and the ways they can involve themselves in their democracy.
  1. Increase in participants’ positive feelings towards their community.
  2. Increase in participants understanding of their democracy, feeling empowered.
  3. Participants become emotionally resilient to the provocative and charged propaganda of extremist groups, ingraining an enhanced ability to identify extremist content and discern fact from fiction in a logical and fact-based manner.
  4. Enhance participants’ ability to question and challenge extremist content, dispelling the misinformation propagated by extremist groups in an effort to sow hate and distrust in society. Beneficiaries will be equipped to challenge misinformation and extremism from any source, including their peers, questioning their views in a productive and constructive manner.
  1. Foster an informed conversation around the topic of extremism and online radicalisation on a societal level.
  2. Foster societal resilience to disinformation.
  3. All those affected by our programmes (both directly and indirectly) are equipped with life-long media literacy, political literacy, and critical thinking skills to combat extremist rhetoric.
  4. A more robust democracy, with active and informed citizens, resilient to disinformation.

Our Team

Where We Work