PROJECT DESCRIPTION - Youth For Love

YFL – February 2019 – April 2021

In 2009, the European Parliament called upon the Member States to adopt “measures to prevent gender-based violence among young people by providing for targeted education campaigns and better cooperation among stakeholders and the various circles affected by the phenomenon, such as families, schools, the public space, and the media”. Indeed, education plays a key role in challenging the negative social norms that drive gender-based violence. Teenagers have lower self-protective mechanisms and are particularly vulnerable to perpetuate and/or be subject to violent behaviours. Despite the fact that legislative initiatives have been taken in all EU Member States to combat violence and abuse, adolescent years remain largely uncovered due to the lack of policies targeting this age group and the fact that many of the actions put in place do not integrate a gender perspective and do not consider the cultural contexts of reference.

As confirmed by several studies and the experience of partner organizations, gender-based violence is caused by stereotypes and prejudices, lack of sex education, lack of information and awareness about “healthy” relationships and the fact that it is widely accepted that gender-based violence is a transgenerational phenomenon, passing from one generation to the next. In this scenario, Youth for Love project aimed at developing, implementing and evaluating an integrated educational program, in high-schools from 4 European countries (Romania, Italy, Belgium and Greece), in the course of 27 months, that contributed to the prevention and combating of school gender based violence among teenagers and provided support and awareness to both high-school students and education professionals with regard to the existence, unacceptability, consequences and management procedures to be applied

The project partnership comprehended the following European organizations: ActionAid Italia (Italy), ActionAid Hellas (Greece), UC Limburg (Belgium), AFOL-Agenzia Metropolitana per la Formazione, l’Orientamento e il Lavoro (Italy) e CPE – Fundatia Centrul Partenariat Pentru Egalitate (Romania).

The project’s main objectives and results achieved have been:

To develop evidence based and participative educational instruments and methodologies for the prevention and management of SRGBV in 12 European schools.
To educate and raise awareness of 578 high-school students, with regard to the prevention and management of SGBV situations, by developing knowledge and abilities through 10 practical modules, and engage 900 other students with the peer to peer activities;
To develop a personal engagement of students, teachers and school staff so to make unacceptable any kind of violence in the schools where they live and to empower these target groups with the ability to reject GBV acts and formalised the related complaints (TOT 903 students engaged in peer to peer activities);
To inform and train 139 education professionals with regard to prevention and management of SGBV situations occurring in schools and impacting high-school students.
To bring SRGBV, especially affecting teenagers, to the attention of 3.9 million general public, especially youth, through a serious game, with a focus on consequences, gender underlying factors and the rights of victims.

YFL2 – May 2021 – April 2023

The WHO acknowledges youth violence as a major public health issue. Youth violence can take up many forms including physical, verbal, psychological and sexual. The UNICEF 2018 Report “An Everyday Lesson: #ENDviolence in Schools” shows that half of the students aged 13–15 experiences bullying or physical fights within a year. The Council of Europe Strategy on the Rights of the Child 2016-2021 has identified violence prevention as one of the five priority areas to guarantee the promotion of children’s rights. Research shows that there are numerous risk factors strongly associated with youth violence that occur at different levels: individual level (i.e. personality and behavioural factors), family and close relationship level (i.e. negative peer influence, lack of social ties, poor parent-child relationships, parents’ antisocial behaviours etc.) and community and society level (i.e. low social cohesion, inequality, insecurity, gender and cultural norms) (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, WHO, 2015).

As with risk factors, also protective factors can be built at these different levels to reduce the likelihood of youth violence. Therefore, based on this evidence and the lessons learnt from the previous project, the “Youth 4 Love 2” project will promote the adoption of a comprehensive multi-stakeholder approach that involves actors that do not typically cooperate such as youth, parents, educational professionals (school and community), associations, private service providers (private and third sector), public services and authorities (public sector) at local, national and EU level. This approach acknowledges that schools are important to reduce and prevent peer violence because they can involve many young people at one time. Nonetheless, school-based interventions need to be integrated by broader violence-prevention initiatives conducted at the community level to address the risks factors that stem from outside the school environment. The process of such community engagement starts from the actors around the schools (youth, teachers, families and community associations) to build broad coalitions and cooperation and advocate for better policies with authorities and decision makers.

The project’s overall objective is to prevent, detect and address peer violence among adolescents (14-18 years) in 5 targeted communities in 4 European countries (Italy, Belgium, Greece and Romania). In order to achieve the overall objective, the action will promote the adoption of positive behaviours for preventing and addressing peer violence among the following target groups: youth, families, educational professionals and community members at large. Community members including individuals, families, schools, NGOs/associations, service providers and local authorities will be involved in community-based initiatives developed and led by youth to prevent and address peer violence. EU citizens, particularly youth, will improve their awareness of the topic through online activities and national and European stakeholders including policymakers, authorities, experts will be involved in advocacy activities to promote policy improvements/changes.

In summary, on the European level the project will involve:

400 students, 190 teachers and school staff, and 50 parents/tutors (high education) to tackle peer violence by adapting a whole-school approach.
100 students, 200 youth, 25 parents, 10 local authorities and 40 local actors (CSOs, child protection professionals, gender equality experts) to address peer violence by implementing local community-based initiatives.
1,5 million people through online activities to address peer violence through a EU wide campaign and a web game.
3 EU & 12 national policy makers, 20 national stakeholders (CSOs, child protection professionals, gender equality experts), 40 teachers, 12 youth and 10 parents with advocacy activities that influence changes in peer violence related policies.

The project partnership is composed of the following European organizations: ActionAid Italia (Italy), ActionAid Hellas (Greece), UC Limburg (Belgium), AFOL Metropolitana (Italy) and Fundatia Centrul Partenariat Pentru Egalitate (Romania).