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Project IUNO – awareness-raising and information on domestic and sexual violence

This project was part of a global strategy that aimed, on one side, to develop a structured knowledge about social representation of victimization and on the other hand, to systematize primary and secondary prevention procedures in the sexual and domestic violence areas.

This project developed a group of positive actions aimed to raise awareness and to develop the knowledge on sexual and domestic violence issues in two target groups – teenagers and education professionals in the municipalities of Baião, Castelo de Paiva, Cinfães, Espinho and Oliveira de Azeméis. During the 24 months of the intervention path, the IUNO Project involved about 3700 students and 400 professionals from about 20 education establishments.

According with the planned goals for the development of this project, each group of students was targeted with two sessions with the duration of about 90 minutes, in which a specific theme was developed. In what concerns the education professionals, they participated in a 120 minute campaign that intended to think about the concepts of sexual and domestic violence, more concretely about violence against children and teenagers.

In these sessions we tried to debate social representations about sexual and domestic violence and to challenge some preconceptions still existent and emerging in the families and professionals speech of our society.

The process of evaluation, planned in collaboration with the Psychology department of the Universidade do Minho and with the Youth Foundation, permitted to achieve indicators about the impact of the session at the level of social representations and to confirm if the development of the sessions happened as planned. The investment made at this level made it possible to establish a parallel between the before and after phases of intervention, allowing to consolidate approaches of prevention close with the selected target-groups.

The result analysis of the awareness campaign points on one hand for the decreasing agreement with the social representations about sexual and domestic violence and on the other hand, in what the professors are concerned, for a more consistent knowledge about the victimization factors, risk factors in the parents, children and teenagers and for a more active role in the school and in the identities of childhood and youth matters.

 

Contact:
Rosa Saavedra, rosasaavedra@apav.pt
assessora técnica da Direcção / senior adviser
Serviços de Sede no / head office services
Associação Portuguesa de Apoio à Vítima / Portuguese Association for Victim Support

 

The project started in 2007 and is still running.
Last review: October 2017.

 

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