Safe from SGBV: marginalized youth in partnership to protect themselves Erasmus Project

Project Title

Safe from SGBV: marginalized youth in partnership to protect themselves

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Gender equality / equal opportunities; Inclusion – equity; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

“Safe from SGBV” addresses the increasing identification of sexual and gender-based violence as an issue impacting social exclusion, especially among Europe’s most vulnerable populations. YSAFE, the youth network of IPPF EN, the region’s leading sexual and reproductive health and rights organization, will bring bring together six partners in Portugal, Serbia and Romania, in a project that will

(1) raise the capacities of 18 young youth workers to train young people from particular vulnerable groups to protect themselves from SGBV

(2) develop, pilot and disseminate a non-formal education tool on SGBV safety based on the needs of young people at risk coming from different countries.

The particular communities at risk of marginalization who will participate in the project are young LGBTQI* people (in Portugal), young Roma people (in Serbia) and young people at risk of discrimination on the basis of gender (in Romania). These groups of people are among those who are disproportionately affected by sexual and gender-based violence.

The project’s methodology will be novel in that it will pair the expertise of organizations experienced in delivering comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) with expertise on protecting vulnerable groups from sexual and gender-based violence. Young youth workers from the target groups will come together with those who have particular experience delivering CSE to collaborate on a toolkit that builds on both of their existing practices. Using CSE as a route to lessening the impact of and preventing SGBV is being increasingly recognised, as sexuality education has the potential to reduce discrimination, increase gender equitable norms, and challenge power dynamics in intimate relationships. Our particular toolkit will include materials and workshop plans enabling youth workers to tackle subjects such as rape, homophobic and transphobic bullying, and intimate partner violence, with young people particularly at risk. Crucially it will have a strong focus on the current digital reality and will also cover cyberbullying, sexting and non-consensual pornography.

Once the toolkit is developed and has been translated into each of the project partner languages, the 18 young youth workers will be trained in delivering non-formal educational workshops using its content in a variety of settings. They will then work in national teams to deliver such sessions to a total of 450 young people from the previously mentioned groups at risk of social exclusion, over a six-month piloting period. We expect to see, as evidenced in pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, that they report greater confidence in identifying, responding to and avoiding sexual and gender-based violence. We predict that this decrease in their reported perception of risk of harm from SGBV will engender a decrease in their reported perception of marginalisation and therefore an increase in their reported sense of belonging in a cohesive Europe.

All of the young people participating in the project will have been selected in part because of their status as trained peer educators. The CSE work will therefore continue, and it is our expectation that the curriculum on SGBV produced as part of this new toolkit will be adopted as part of all IPPF EN members’ CSE programmes. The partner organisations from outside of the IPPF EN network will also be encouraged to adopt the workshops long-term within the educational programming that they run.
In the context of shrinking space for civil society and the increasing restrictions on sexual and reproductive rights across Europe, we expect to see lasting mutual benefits to both the SRHR organizations and the non-SRHR organizations from cooperating on this transnational project and sharing their tactics in comparably restrictive social situations. Using the toolkit will make publicly identified sexuality education programmes more impactful in training young people to protect themselves from SGBV. Meanwhile, in contexts where sexuality education is too risky or unwelcome to implement explicitly, the toolkit will have enduring usability in anti-violence programmes to emphasise safety, protection and well-being to the same end.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 76392,12 Eur

Project Coordinator

INTERNATIONAL PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION EUROPEAN NETWORK & Country: BE

Project Partners

• SOCIETATEA DE EDUCATIE CONTRACEPTIVA SI SEXUALA DIN ROMANIA ASOCIATIA
• Centrul de Dezvoltare Curriculara si Studii de Gen: FILIA
• rede ex aequo – associação de jovens lésbicas, gays, bissexuais, transgéneros e simpatizantes
• ASOCIJACIJA ZA SEKSUALNO I REPRODUKTIVNO ZDRAVLJE SRBIJE
• Association Regional Youth Center Udruzenje “Regionalni Omladinski Centar”
• ASSOCIACAO PARA PLANEAMENTO DA FAMILIA