CARE: Community-Based Primary Prevention of Gender-based Violence in Greece and Italy

The CARE project will be implemented by four civil society partners from Greece and Italy with expertise in women’s and girls’ empowerment to contribute towards the prevention of gender-based violence (GBV) against women and girls, with a focus on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).

The geographical proximity of the two countries, which share similar socio-economic and cultural conditions and are points of entry/disembarkation for immigrants and refugees (which are one of the target groups of this project), is the starting point for this cross-border cooperation.

What we aim to achieve is tackling the root causes of GBV through community-based interventions that engage women, men, and their children, as well as women-led media dissemination activities for the general public. CARE will be implemented in Athens, Greece and in Palermo, Italy, reaching a total of 400 direct beneficiaries (200 women and adolescent girls, 100 men, 100 children). In addition, 70,000 people are expected to be reached in the context of the online media campaign. The implementation of the project will last 18 months between February 2023 up to July 2024.

Main project results include:

Evidence-based contextualisation/adaptation of 4 tools that will guide the project activities in Italy and Greece and will become available for further EU use.
Women’s peer-to-peer groups, physical and recreational activities, media and film workshops: 200 women in Italy and Greece will build empowerment and female support networks.
Pilot male engagement and accountability workshops in Italy and Greece: 60 men participants will be engaged in a transformative process to encourage change of GBV related gender norms and likelihood of bystander intervention, guided by the voices of women.
2 Training of Trainers (1 in Italy, 1 in Greece) to build the capacity of 12 women to become GBV focal points for prevention, liaise with GBV actors, and spread the knowledge further to their communities.
3 short films created and directed by female participants of the media and film workshops in Italy and Greece, to be used in online campaigns for prevention and dissemination events.
Creation of a transnational network between Italy and Greece to exchange knowledge, including 1 exchange visit of Community GBV Focal Points to Palermo, Italy and 2 exchange visits between the project partners.

The CARE project is co-funded by the European Union and it’s incubated to the EU action grants in the field of gender-based violence under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Value Program (CERV-2022-DAPHNE).

FAQs

Can I be part of the project? Is there any limitation?

You are welcome to be part of the project. CARE has no limitations regarding sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression (SOGIESC), race, language, origin and religion. Each activity will include details for the participant’s characteristics. If you are coming from the civil society world, you are welcome to be a stakeholder.

To whom the project is addressed?

The project has 3 main focusing pillars, women and girls, men and children. These diverse target groups have been chosen to reach different groups with interventions that are relevant to their specific needs and circumstances.

Women will be reached through psychosocial and empowerment activities promoting their agency and raising their awareness, while men will be engaged in a transformative process to foster accountability, encourage change of GBV-related gender norms, shift in attitudes, and likelihood of bystander intervention, guided by the voices of women. Children and the general public will be reached through education and sensitization, taking on a whole-community engagement approach to prevent GBV.

The project is also addressed to the civil society world and institutions, who can be stakeholders and be part of the discussion in our round tables.

Where can I be informed about the program activities?

For each activity we will announce calls for action in time ahead, so as to reach as many people as possible.

Also, important announcements around the project and activities will be posted in social media.

We suggest you follow the social media channels of all the partners.

Which is the selection process for the activities that will take place?

Our main goal is to be as inclusive as we can and include all the beneficiaries who are interested in the activities. In all activities participants should fill online registration forms and/or apply through WhatsApp and Viber, which will be announced on time.

Who can I contact about further questions?

You can reach out to the project managers of each organization:

Athens, Greece:

IRC Hellas: Jenny Kountouri Tsiami, [email protected]
Caritas Hellas: Anastasia Spiliopoulou, [email protected]
GGM Greece: Andriana Theochari, [email protected]

Palermo, Italy:

IRC Italy: Silvia Calcavecchio, [email protected]
Centro Penc: Sara Ferreira da Silva, [email protected]

Please tell me more about the partners:

IRC Hellas and IRC Italy

IRC Hellas was established in Greece in 2015. It focuses on assisting refugees, asylum seekers, migrants with reception and integration as well as on supporting people with particular vulnerabilities, like unaccompanied children, survivors of GBV, people with mental health concerns and people in need of employment and/or employment related skills. The IRC operates 4 functional and fully equipped Women’s Independent Living (WIL) apartments for asylum seeking and refugee single women with their children in the city centre of Athens. Moreover, IRC Hellas has operated seven women’s safe spaces in refugee camps across Greece, has offered training to GBV front-line service responders and other professionals, and has piloted community-based protection with women’s groups from refugee communities.

IRC Italy supported the establishment in 2020 of the WGSS in Palermo run by Centro Penc where migrant women and girls have the opportunity to participate in recreational activities and access psychological and accompaniment services available to survivors of gender-based violence (GBV). In response to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, IRC Italy opened safe spaces in other cities, namely Milan, Trieste and Turin. As part of other projects, it is supporting the start-up of other WGSS in other locations in Italy and in European countries, in cooperation with other partner organizations, in order to prevent and respond to GBV.

Caritas Hellas

Caritas Hellas has provided humanitarian services for the socially excluded in Greece since 1981 and has a proven capacity of successfully implementing international partnership projects. Caritas Hellas, being part of the international Caritas Network, a vast alliance of 162 humanitarian organizations with extensive experience in facing emergencies and providing humanitarian aid.

Centro Penc

Centro Penc was founded in 2015 in Palermo, Italy, and carries out social solidarity and mental health activities aimed at the most vulnerable people. It has profound experience in GBV related programming. Since 2019, Centro Penc is supporting GBV survivors and other forms of violence in Palermo (Italy), through a two-way approach: by providing specialized psychological support; and through the community and peer to peer sessions. The organization also operates a Women and Girls Safe Space since 2020, the first one to be opened in Italy.

Global Girl Media (GGM) Greece

GGM Greece is an all-female and female-identifying organization that focuses on research, production and training the next generation of female content creatives. In the past three years, GGM Greece has focused on digital media projects that both empower young women but also unite Greek and refugee/migrant women in a common project to use digital media to advance gender rights.