Boys don’t cry…? Mainstreaming gender in youth work Erasmus Project

Project Title

Boys don’t cry…? Mainstreaming gender in youth work

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Gender equality / equal opportunities; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

With the Strategic Partnership “Boys don’t cry…? Mainstreaming gender in youth work”, the promoters wanted to develop and transfer educational tools and organisational practices to de-construct gender roles and stereotypes in youth work.

The project developed co-operation, fostered new ideas and exchanged best practices among organisations in order to transversally address gender mainstreaming in youth work around Europe.

The results of the project underline the transversality of gender mainstreaming, addressing the way how femininities and masculinities are constructed and how it affects society in general and youth work in particular. That’s why this strategic partnership results were specially addressed to youth workers, trainers and educators, to develop learning tools aiming at mainstreaming gender in youth work through Human Rights Education and Non-Formal Education methodologies.

This mid-term Strategic partnership supported by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission was promoted by a consortium of the following European organisations:
TrajectoryaMTÜ Trajectorya (Estonia) — Project coordinator, Comitato Provinciale Arcigay Il Cassero (Italy), the Association of Human Rights Educators – AHEAD (Catalonia), the National Institute for Social Integration (Lithuania), the Intercultural Institute of Timisoara (Romania), the Renaisance Institute (Turkey) and Be International (Czech Republic)

The specific objectives set for the strategic partnership were:

To explore how gender roles are constructed and “normality” established for masculinities and femininities in diverse communities around Europe;
To introduce non formal education and Human Rights Education methodologies and to implement approaches and activities that support the role of youth work in this area;
To contribute actively to de-construct sexist attitudes through capacity building, exchange of best practices, testing youth work tools, and create methods that challenge predetermined gender roles and inequalities;
To foster cooperation and exchange of best practices, raise awareness and develop competences in key concepts for mainstreaming gender in youth work encouraging the cooperation between organisations directly working with young people with fewer opportunities;
To develop ideas for incorporating gender perspectives in youth work and at community level, and to introduce and promote the qualitative development of the activities for young people in frames of Erasmus+ programme.
To disseminate the results of the project by providing open access to educational materials, creating guidelines for organisational management and to strengthen the strategic cooperation between youth organisations, CSO, educational systems and local authorities.

The strategic partnership was implemented through several phases, which included learning mobilities for youth workers from partner countries, and the creation of educational materials as a long term project result.

Phase 1: Preparation and Co-ordination meeting of all partners representatives

Phase 2: Creation of the Intellectual outputs

Phase 3: Learning Activity Mainstreaming gender

Phase 4: Dissemination meeting

Phase 5: Follow up activities

Through the project implementation, the consortium of this strategic partnership achieved the following results

1) Intellectual outputs, training tools and modules
The main result was to develop specific methodological training tools, innovative practices and guidelines for incorporating gender perspectives in youth work and at community level.
The second result was to create a website and make use of ICT and open learning resources to disseminate these intellectual outputs by providing free access to educational materials, creating guidelines for organisational management.

2) Educational activitiy:
The result was to bring added value to the European citizenship construction through promoting gender equality, and to contribute actively to de-construct sexist attitudes through capacity building, exchange of best practices, testing youth work tools, and create methods that challenge predetermined gender roles and inequalities;

3) Another result was to build upon the strategic partnership, fostering co-operation and exchange of best practices, raise awareness and develop competences in key concepts for mainstreaming gender in youth work encouraging the cooperation between organisations and institutions working with young people.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 64719,25 Eur

Project Coordinator

Noorteorganisatsioon Trajectorya & Country: EE

Project Partners

• RONESANS ENSTITUSU DERNEGI
• VIESOJI ISTAIGA NACIONALINIS SOCIALINES INTEGRACIJOS INSTITUTAS
• BE INTERNATIONAL
• COMITATO PROVINCIALE ARCIGAY DI BOLOGNA IL CASSERO ASSOCIAZIONE
• Deneyimsel Egitim Merkezi Dernegi
• Association of Human Rights Educators – AHEAD
• Asociatia Bumerang