Summary

Summary

The Project "Gender Equality Awareness Raising against Intimate Partner Violence II" (GEAR against IPV-II) aims to contribute to primary and secondary prevention of Intimate Partner/Dating/Sexual Violence (IPV/SV) among teens.

Beneficiaries
Main beneficiaries are teens (12-16 years old) who are victims and/or perpetrators of IPV/SV or at risk (teens’ general population) and at high risk (abused/neglected/vulnerable children 12+ years old) of becoming victims and/or perpetrators in the future.

Target-groups
Target-groups are school teachers and teachers and/or professionals working with high-risk teens

The GEAR against IPV II Project
The project follows the GEAR against IPV approach that has already been pilot-tested and evaluated during the former GEAR against IPV project; it is child-centered as teens are not taught but, instead, guided (exclusively via experiential activities) to explore their own attitudes, their impact to their lives and to ‘discover’ and exercise life skills enabling development of violent-free intimate relationships.

The result of the project is teens empowered in ways promoting zero-tolerance and equipped with ‘protection skills’ that enable them to avoid being victimized and/or to appropriately and safely react to IPV/SV as victims or bystanders. Moreover, all teens are equipped with valuable life skills for breaking the cycle of violence and building healthy relationships.

The objectives and outputs are:
  • Mapping of preventive and supportive initiatives for IPV/SV in children and/or teens in five EU Member States, via desk research that resulted in 5 Country Reports (Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Spain)
  • Develop appropriate and ready-to-be-used material that can be used in preventive projects with adolescents in five Member States and at EU level
    • provide an updated ‘Guidance Material’ (revised Master Package) that can be used for the development of culturally appropriate National Packages in every country in Europe
    • develop, pilot-test and evaluate culturally adapted material (five National Packages) for three countries (Cyprus, Spain, Romania) and update the existing material for two countries (Greece, Croatia); the method for the evaluation was experts evaluation and focus groups with teachers and students, the results of which are available in Evaluation Reports 
  • Conduct and evaluate the following activities targeting to prevention of IPV/SV, on the basis of the methodology described and with the material provided in separate booklets of the National GEAR against IPV Packages
    • teachers' training seminars, aiming at their capacity building to implement awareness raising interventions with adolescents as well as to screen, support and protect victimized teens (262 teachers and professionals working with high-risk groups were trained in 11 Seminars)
    • awareness raising workshops with adolescents at schools and settings with vulnerable/high risk groups of children and adolescents by the trained teachers/professionals (more than 1.600 teens participated in 81 Workshops)
    • the implementation and evaluation results of the above activities are presented in Country Reports and summarized in Policy briefs/Factsheets, that include also recommendations on the basis of the experience gained
  • Sensitize Teens’ general population via
    • e-campaigns (using a compilation of artistic products that teens who participated in the Workshops created for conveying preventive messages to their peers)
    • National Conferences where teens presented their experience from the Workshops
  • A variety of dissemination and lobbying activities were conducted aiming to a) widely spread preventive messages created by adolescents in the general population of their peers, b) promote future implementation of the Workshops in schools after the project's life, and c) promote the development of new National Packages.