A NORTH-East university has launched a campaign to tackle attitudes towards hate crime, harassment and violence.

Created by Sunderland University graduates Zoe Cooper, 24, and 22-year-old Daniel Hepple, it was created following a national call to improve campus safety and educate students about about acceptable behaviour.

It includes a poem, written by Miss Cooper and a video, created by Mr Hepple.

Miss Cooper, who works at the university's students' union, said: “I wanted the poem to focus on extremely serious aspects that most people know are wrong, but also actions which may be considered not as grave yet actually are still very damaging.

“I haven’t seen any other videos on this subject like ours, so hopefully this will make it stand out and people will remember it.”

Mr Hepple, a trainee script editor on the CBBC show The Dumping Ground, added: “I think a lot of the messages in Zoe’s poem are common sense, but perhaps some things will surprise and educate people on sexual consent.

“There’s been an increase on consent awareness and I’m glad to have contributed to that.”

The campaign was created in response to Universities UK recommendations on sexual misconduct and hate crime.

Oliver Pritchard, deputy director of student journey, said: “We aim to promote a supportive environment in line with our strong track record on equality, diversity and inclusion.

“Key to this support is ensuring that our students and staff know how to raise concerns about gender based violence, hate crime and harassment, where and how to access support and how to make safe interventions via our Active Bystander initiative.

“Working closely with our Students’ Union we are now launching this cross campus information campaign so that our whole University community benefits from these key messages.”