Seminar “Consensual”
Estonian team of two spent 5 days in Comarruga, Spain, to learn more about gender based violence and measures to take against sexual harassment, especially in the context of youth work. We worked together with participants from Lithuania, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and Hungary, many of them working or studying in the fields of sociology, psychology, youth work or Erasmus+ partnering organisations.
The facilitators for this project were Jorge and Maria, both of whom are experienced in the topic of sexual violence and non-formal education. For the duration of the seminar, they oversought the activities and discussions among the group and were the ones, who had developed most of the materials and training sessions to educate us, but also share useful tools and methodology for us to use in our own local communities and sending organisations, to prevent sexual harassment.
The aim of this training course was to teach how to create “safe” spaces in our lives, whether it be in schools, workplaces, Erasmus+ projects or at home. The discussion around the topic of sexual violence has become more and more normalised amongst young people, but there often aren’t any widespread instuctions on how to deal with alarming situations around us or how to conciously prevent them from happening. At the project, we followed the structure of activity-dissemination-implementation, which helps to create a concrete plan for possible conflicts we might encounter, and how to effectively solve those, without harming the victims further or putting ourselves in danger. We used this tactic to tackle different intervention techniques for situations such as giving consent, victim-blaming, revictimisation, toxic relationships, coercion etc. We were also given time to come up with our own training sessions in smaller groups, to learn how to facilitate such activities ourselves and get feedback from our peers.
The way we communicate creates the group dynamic and atmosphere between people. It is important to really listen to others to learn about their experiences, without assuming their responses. There are many small mannerisms we use every day without thinking much about it, but they make a big difference to how our speech is received by others and can even unconsciously influence our way of thinking. During the seminar we dedicated time to correcting others’ and our own wording, to be precise about our intentions.
The main idea of this course might be, that education is the key to preventing sexual violence. Even though the facts and experiences might be painful to hear, it is necessary for taking action and nurturing people, who would recognise harmful actions and know when to seek or offer help.
These kinds of youth work training courses are a great way to learn about non-formal education and give a clearer picture of the Erasmus+ structure, which might not be evident when just participating in the activities without being aware of the methodology that is being used. Of course it also helps to connect youth workers and trainers from different organisations and creates possibilities for future collaboration.
- Kirke and Khan
