Description
A lot of women experiencing gender based violence do not have access to specific protection, help and support. The right of women to a life without violence is not respected and is overlooked by the responsible bodies. The project aims to increase accessibility of specialized services for women and to improve the quality of protection, help and support of women on the side of relevant institutions via direct provision of counseling, evaluation of services provision from the CoE Minimum Standards perspective; analysis of data and case studies; workshops for employees of relevant institutions; case conferences in the multi-agency setting; consultations in individual cases of VAW; information brochures and materials on our website; evaluation of possibilities and forms of cooperation among organizations and institutions providing direct support to women; work meetings of NGOs and their recommendations with a view to unifying methodologies, procedures and collection of data. The main beneficiary are women experiencing violence and their children exposed to such violence. They are also other target groups, such as decion makers responsible for policies and practice/service provision to women experienceing gender based violence and domestic violence.
Summary of project results
This project’s aim was to empower vulnerable groups, in particular women experiencing gender based intimate partner violence and their children via carrying out the following three main activities: Activity 1: increasing availability of specialised services for women; Activity 2: increasing quality of specialised service provision in compliance with the CoE minimum standards in specialised counselling centres; promoting cooperation and networking of specialised counselling centres and contributing to unification of data collection methodologies and procedures; Activity 3: increasing quality of public and state institutions interventions in the field of protection, help and support of women and promoting multi-agency cooperation. We increased the number of counselling workers by 2 persons; we worked with 525 women experiencing violence (out of which 255 received direct help and support and 270 women were helped via counselling to third persons; we issued„A Guide to Your Safety”; we printed a leaflet (3000 pcs) and distributed to relevant public institutions and other organizations; we published useful information on gender based violence against women on our website (
www.fenestra.sk); we provided training on telephone crisis intervention and data collection for volunteers and we issued an evaluation report of 2014-2015. We cooperated with other women’s NGOs in the Safe Women’s Network, including newly founded specialised counselling centres, and we primarily worked on unification of data collection methodologies. We unified the data collection and had an electronic data base, including the user manual. We intend to use such data in policy making in the field of gender based violence against women.We carried out 4 workshops for 56 employees of relevant public institutions focusing on basic sensitisation, and on the development of practical skills; we worked together with Working Group on Prevention and Elimination of Violence against Women in Kosice on analysis of a case study describing situation of a real case of gender based violence. We will ensure sustainability of the project by active participation in advocacy activities aimed at sustainable funding of specialised support services by the Slovak government, as it is the government’s obligation to ensure such funding under international treaties.
Summary of bilateral results