EU-Funded Projects: Preventing Violence

 

Preventing violence among youth, a program developed by Dianova Uruguay

Developed jointly by Dianova Uruguay and Dianova Spain, this project “A Social Program to Prevent Violence through the Empowerment of Educational & Youth Centers” is dedicated to providing youth centers’ teachers and educators with emotional and social management tools to help them prevent youth from engaging in violence.

Co-funded by the European Union through the European Instrument for Democracy & Human Rights (EIDHR), the project is grounded on a methodology based on relational and emotional learning through experience-sharing and citizen participation. The project consists of providing educators with basic training capabilities which will be in turn transmitted to groups of youth facilitators in a the participating facilities. These “youth facilitators” are later on in charge of preparing and developing impact projects destined to facilitating peer intervention in the field of violence prevention and other situations of vulnerability.

The project has now more than fulfilled its objectives and is entering its final phase before its conclusion in February 2016. The last training seminar entitled “Developing Violence Prevention Projects at School” was held on April 23-24 at the Balmoral Hotel (Montevideo, Uruguay) with 63 teachers and other education professionals from the 30 centers who had joined the project. The training focused on providing educators with methodological tools to help them implement successful youth programs in their respective centers.

The training was conducted by Ms. Gemma Naranjo from Dianova Spain, a partner institution in this project, and Ms Magdalena Alvarez, a technical project manager in Uruguay. On the occasion of this training seminar, the meeting organizers were visited by Ms. Clelia de la Fuente, Cooperation Advisor for the EU Delegation in Uruguay), who expressed her satisfaction with the project.

Overall, the project has impacted and trained more than 600 education professionals. After receiving this training those teachers have conducted 70 workshops with more than 1,900 young participants. In addition, we look forward to achieve excellent outcomes  in the development and implementation of youth-led impact projects, in their schools and communities.

Last but not least, we’d like to point out the publication of the document “A conceptual and analytical approach in 30 schools in Uruguay” based on this project, as well as the adoption, by the cooperation sector of the EU delegation, of the progress report after a period of one year, which  implies the allocation of funds to cover the second and last stage of the project, from March 2014 to February 2016.