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Description
Between January and September 2020, the General Directorates of Social Assistance and Child Protection registered 10,656 cases of abuse, neglect or exploitation against minors. A police statement states that more than 7,000 temporary protection orders have been issued in cases of domestic violence, the main facts being "hitting or other violence" - 61.6%, followed by "abandonment of family" - 13.8% and “threat” - 9.2%. The project aims to implement a local intervention to prevent and combat domestic and gender violence through:
- extra-curricular activities with 200 children (aged 10-14 years) in order to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of domestic violence and gender and impact on the area of violent behavior in the classroom;
- training of 60 teachers and 20 social workers from disadvantaged communities for the purpose of prevention, recognition and intervention in case a child is abused / neglected or is violent with an emphasis on treating the cause not the effects;
- raising awareness about the effects of domestic violence - organizing extracurricular workshops.
Complementarily, 1 educational curriculum will be developed with the approach of topics such as: equal opportunities and equal treatment, mutual respect, non-violent conflict resolution in interpersonal relationships, gender violence and combating gender stereotypes and discriminatory gender stereotypes; community facilitation sessions will be organized for teachers and social workers. Also, a White Paper will be drafted with recommendations in support of the intervention and ensuring the sustainability of the project for compliance in the pre-university environment with social inclusion measures and the principle of equal opportunities. The partnerships created within the project and the organization of the thematic conferences bring added value to the intervention and create the possibility of further replicability in other counties as well.
Summary of project results
The project addressed the obstacles in implementing measures for identifying and approaching violence in school environment, especially in rural areas where incidence of violence is higher given the social, economic and cultural context.
The project brought together the actors with roles and responsibilities: Ministry of Education, National Agency for Equal Chances, teachers and social assistants in order to develop collaboration and improve the framework of action, create capacity of intervention and approach from the perspective of human rights (equal chances), raise awareness among children, teachers, public etc. and create resources for teachers, social assistances and children.
There were signed 8 partnership agreements, there were organized trainings and mentorship sessions for teachers and social assistants and awareness workshops for children; it was published a teachers’ guide for approaching abuse. Also, there were developed a curriculum with activities related to equal chances, non-violent approach of conflicts, etc. to be used in classroom a whitepaper with recommendations regarding the implementation of inclusion and equal chances principles. 51 teachers and 14 social assistants were trained and more than 950 children attended awareness workshops. The project addressed 30 communities from 8 counties in Moldova region. Resources are available on the project website www.educatieinsiguranta.ro .