A Presentation of a Project on Changing Social Norms to Prevent Domestic and Gender-Based Violence Took Place in the Lutsk City Territorial Community
On January 31, a project on changing social norms to prevent domestic and gender-based violence was presented at the meeting of the City Student Parliament. Besides, the «Drivers of Social Change» hackathon was planned to take place in the future.
The project was implemented by the Department of Social Services for Family, Children and Youth of Lutsk City Council within the framework of cooperation between the UNFPA and the NGO «Innovative Social Solutions» and support of the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance.
The goal of the project is to eradicate harmful and establish new social norms to prevent the problem of domestic violence in the Lutsk city territorial community by forming a movement of social change drivers among schoolchildren of the community.
The Head of the Department of Social Projects of the Department of Social Services for Family, Children and Youth Tamara Bondaruk and Nadiya Bruyaka who is a psychologist of the mobile brigade providing social and psychological assistance to victims of domestic violence, told the audience about the problem that the project aims to solve and the main stages of its implementation.
Despite programs being developed and implemented to raise public awareness of the problem of violence, behaviors that lead to violent incidents still occur.
The matter is that there are certain societal views and beliefs about domestic violence that give legal advantage to men, justify violence and contribute to the strengthening of gender inequality between men and women. The existence of destructive social norms leads to the fact that their falsity is considered a norm and does not question the wrongness of behavior.
The project authors believe that children are the best drivers for any changes, so it was decided to target the initiative at schoolboys and schoolgirls. Moreover, it is agreed to hold the «Drivers of Social Change» hackathon among active, caring and creative teens aged 14 to 18 years. The event will be aimed at gaining skills of finding solutions that may change the destructive social norms that, in turns, generate domestic and gender-based violence.
At the first stage of the project, a number of trainings are planned and they are aimed at:
- understanding the basis of social norms regarding domestic violence, how they work and how they can be changed to prevent violence against women and prevent its negative consequences;
- formation of attitudes on the importance of promoting the idea of healthy relations between people regardless of physical, psychological, social, gender and other differences.
Department of Social Services for Family, Children and Youth