CARING: Preventing violence in school settings by challenging social and gender stereotypes

Description

Terre des hommes Hellas – Land of People, as a child protection organization, has as its constant goal the empowerment of children and the professionals who are next to children. As part of our mission, we are starting the implementation of the CARING project for two years, in eight schools in Athens. The CARING transnational project aims to understand, prevent and reduce gender-based violence among young people in school settings in 4 countries: Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia. Challenging existing social and gender stereotypes, the project team aims to promote positive practices in schools and communities.

With our actions in Greece, we empower school communities as a whole, including targeted actions for teachers, students and parents.

Actions

1. Exploring the needs of the school community through qualitative research
2. Empowering the teacher community. Terre des hommes Hellas will organize a training of trainers (ToT), with the aim of the participants transferring this knowledge to the staff of the schools where they work. Terre des homme Hellas will then continue to play a supporting role, by organizing support sessions with trained staff in each school.
3. Education and empowerment of students aged 13-18, who will promote positive attitudes. Group activities will then be organized in each school so that the student community develops and organizes its own interventions/initiatives targeting parents or teachers, peers and the local community.
4. Meetings with parents where they will be informed about violence against children at school, gender-based violence and harmful social perceptions of gender. Parents will be informed about activities at the school and consider how they can support their children in combating and preventing violence.
5. Dissemination of results by organizing events to share best practices and seminars to raise awareness among the general public.

Expected results:

• In the short term, youth and school staff will gain a better understanding of gender issues and the scale of school violence by participating in the initial needs assessment. Then, based on the adapted methodology, school facilitators will train members of the school staff and management.
• In the long term, professionals will have gained a better understanding of the dimensions of gender-based violence and will be equipped with knowledge to recognize it as well as skills to prevent, mediate and combat it. They will also be empowered to systematically promote gender equality and non-discrimination at the institutional level.

Follow CARING news on the project page: https://tdh.gr/el/caring-amfisbitontas-koinonikes-kai-emfyles-antilipseis-me-stoho-ti-meiosi-tis-bias-kata-ton

You can register for the first webinar of the project at the link: https://childhub.org/el/child-protection-webinars/ekpaideytika-programmata-gia-tin-prolipsi-tis-emfylis-bias-meso-tis-antimetopisis- ton-stereotypon-webinar

For more information about the project, you can contact George Kanaris, Child Protection Programs Coordinator, at [email protected].

The CARING program is coordinated by Terre des hommes (Tdh) Romania in collaboration with Tdh Hungary, Tdh Greece, Brave Phone Croatia, Institute of Social Activities and Practices (SAPI) and Association Roditeli Bulgaria. The project is co-financed by the European Commission (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme). Program duration: May 2023 – April 2025.