A study shows that ethnic Norwegians fear Islam more than climate changes. Only 4% of Norway’s 5 million people are of Muslim origin. The Norwegian Centre Against Racism wanted a national campaign to address the prejudice and change the negative media focus.

The overall goal was to create an arena for all Norwegians to meet and give Muslims a reason to speak up.

We chose not to focus on how prejudiced people are, but rather on reasons not to be. The problem as we saw it, was that the everyday lives of Muslims were invisible to ethnic Norwegians. Our key insight: No one is less prejudiced than those who have visited a Muslim home. By using Muslims homes as our main media, we wanted to give everyone the chance to do just that.Our idea? TeaTime: Engaging Muslims to invite their ethnic Norwegian neighbours home, for a cup of tea. And presenting some of them in a cross media campaign.

The campaign has become a huge success in Norway. With broad media coverage and thousands of people drinking tea in Muslim homes the goal of bringing Ethnic Norwegians and Muslims closer together has been achieved.

The Facebook page attracted thousands of people within days after the launch and Muslims started to send out invitations. Soon after, people started meeting in Muslim homes all across Norway from Tromsø to Oslo. Invitations were sent not only to neighbours, but to public persons, politicians and bloggers, helping to draw massive attention to the campaign. One Muslim family even sent an invitation to the Royal Palace.

At the same time, ordinary Muslims was frontet in more classical advertising. All of these were launched simultaneously and directed the public to the Facebook page - all the while focusing on Muslim homes and the dialogue between Ethnic Norwegians and Muslims. The visits and the campaign also got broad media coverage in the news and different editorials - and people from other countries contacted us asking if they could start up similar projects in their homes.

The campaign has become a huge success in Norway. With broad media coverage and thousands of people drinking tea in Muslim homes, the goal of bringing Ethnic Norwegians and Muslims closer together had been achieved.

An editorial in Aftenposten, Norway's leading newspaper, called it "an outstanding project". Finally, the media had interesting stories to tell from the everyday life of Muslims.

The strength of the campaign is that Muslim homes are used as a channel and that the campaign rolls on its own - being just as simple and engaging as we wanted it to be.

The Norwegian Centre Against Racism wanted a national campaign to address prejudice against Muslims and change the negative media focus – and so far that is what "Tea Time" has managed.The campaign will run throughout 2011, giving all Norwegians a chance to visit a Muslim home.