Partner in the Project “Building Health Intimate Relationships” (GEAR against IPV - II) that is being implemented with the financial support from the DAPHNE III Programme of the European Union.
“The Smile of the
Child” participates as partner in the Project “Building Health Intimate
Relationships” (GEAR against IPV - II) that is being implemented with the
financial support from the DAPHNE III Programme of the European Union.
In April 2015, 17 Educators and Psychologists working at the Organization “The Smile of the Child” attended a 3 day Training Seminar, where they:
- were theoretically and experientially trained on issues related to gender stereotypical attitudes, gender equality and gender-based violence in adolescents’ relationships
- built their capacity and developed skills for the implementation and evaluation of the adolescents’ awareness raising workshops who reside in the organization’s Community Homes or are visiting the Day Care centers for Children
- were trained and gained additional skills related to identifying, handling and appropriate referring of cases of abuse of children and teens.
The seminar took
place in Athens in the Studio of the European Voluntary Student Network
“YouSmile“ that is being coordinated by the "The Smile of the Child".
The professionals who attended the seminar implemented adolescents’ awareness
raising workshops in our Homes at Corinth, Aigio, Thessaloniki,Corfu, Peristeri
(Athens), Melissia (Athens), Kareas (Athens), Mitikas (Evia), Kyllini, Agrinio,
Marousi (Athens) and Moschato (Athens).
Via their participation in the workshops, adolescents are offered, via
experiential activities, the opportunity
- to assess and challenge –within a safe environment- their culturally “inherited” gender stereotypes and
- to explore the influence that gender stereotypical attitudes and socially imposed gender roles have on their relationships, as well as how power inequality between the sexes is related to violence against women and girls.
Moreover, adolescents
are provided with the necessary skills that will enable them to recognize –at an
early stage- the unhealthy characteristics of a relationship and the early
warning signs of violence, and also empowered in ways that will enable them to
create healthy relationships.
Therefore, the ultimate goal of the workshops is young people less tolerant
towards IPV, more knowledgeable of the characteristics and consequences of
gender-based violence and equipped with “protection skills” against intimate
partner violence and other forms of gender-based violence, for both themselves
and the people they know.
The long-term objective of the workshops is adolescents’ relationships to be
healthy and based on equality and mutual respect as, in such a relationship, the
phenomenon of gender-based violence is impossible to occur.
In addition, at the end of the project, each group of adolescents created
products (materials and messages), which consist of part of the Pan-Hellenic
Informational and Awareness Campaign on gender-based violence for adolescents.
Moreover, a National and a European Conference were organized and held in Athens
in 2016 (at the end of the project).
The Project was implemented under the coordination of European Anti-Violence
Network with the participation of the following organizations:
- The Smile of the Child, Greece
- Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS), Cyprus
- Center for Education, Counselling and Research (CESI), Croatian
- Association for Gender Equality and Liberty (ALEG), Romania
- Plataforma unitària contra les violències de gènere, Spain
The project started on October 2014 and was completed on November 2016.
The GEAR against IPV - II project is implemented with financial support from the DAPHNE III Programme of the European Union
More information you
can find in the project’s information leaflet
here
as well as in the project’s website:
www.gear-ipv.eu