Description
NGOs are often solving just cases of women and their children as victims of violence in intimate partnership where children are witnesses of it. However there is also public awareness that other victims of domestic violence are elderly people, disabled people or children, where the aggressors are parents, children or grandchildren (who are already adults) or other family members. This project focuses on helping these vulnerable groups of people. The objective of the project is to build awareness and provide help to these groups. The outcomes of the project include more knowledge about domestic violence between elderly people attending senior clubs in Bratislava, pupils attending elementary schools and people likely to be the first to contact or reveal victims of domestic violence in these vulnerable groups and to provide specialized care and counseling to them. The project aims to address these challenges through preventive program and campaigns.
Summary of project results
A support system for victims of domestic violence is still at the development stage in our country. Help is provided mainly to women - who experience relationship violence - and to children. The field of domestic violence against seniors and other adults dependent on relatives' help remains little explored and is given marginal attention. There is no legislation nor system of help adapted to this field. That's why we wanted to carry out a project focusing on various preventive and informative activities to increase awareness of domestic violence within the project target groups. Through these activities, we sought potential and actual domestic violence victims, and we gave them help in resolving their situation. We increased the general public's awareness of domestic violence, which can affect people of any age. The main activities were: informative and preventive activities with seniors, preventive activities in kindergartens and schools, and the Stop the Violence! campaign. We provided social, psychological and legal counselling. During the project we created some information and educational materials for the target groups. We made a brochure for seniors focused on detecting domestic violence illustrated by specific situations and examples, as well as channels of assistance along with contact details. Another material was a brochure for female secondary school students - 'Princess manual' which is targeted at violence in relationships. The brochure is focused on warning signals at the beginning of a relationship, when it is necessary to be more careful, what to do, when a girl feels in danger, who to contact, etc. It is written in a humorous and interesting way for the target group, and it also has attractive illustrations. We also created a leaflet which presents our organisation and contacts for help, signs of domestic violence, etc. Thanks to the project, we updated 'The first contact with a domestic violence victim' brochure. During the project we conducted 34 information and preventive campaigns for seniors, we detected 42 cases of domestic violence , and we distributed 5800 leaflets to seniors. We also organized three fine-art campaigns called Stop the violence!, gave 8000 first contact leaflets, and performed preventive activities at schools, during which we detected 33 new cases among children and students. Throughout the project, we detected 81 new cases from the target group based on over 240 consultations.
Summary of bilateral results