In the past two months, dozens of children from eight schools in Romania designed and implemented original initiatives to combat violence in schools with the support of facilitators, teachers and parents.
In a previous phase, the Terre des hommes Foundation, together with the donor(s), had offered the coordinating teachers training, a methodology, and then the material means for creative activities on this topic. Thus, after a period of training (of teachers and students) on the topic of violence, they could start working on various creations of their choice, which they then presented in the communities for a wider impact.
After the children conducted interviews with their peers on the topic of violence, it emerged that stairs or hallways are among the most unsafe spaces for them (being places where they are most often verbally or physically assaulted). Then each group from the respective schools thought of the intervention in the form of a small attractive project to combat or prevent the problem: messages transmitted through videos, paintings on the walls, posters, or even local events. For example, the "psychological first aid kit" was born as an original idea of students from the Ferdinand School in Bucharest and includes useful accessories such as headphones, tea, coloring or origami drawings, soothing stories. But most importantly, the first aid is the very fact that the students thought of their peers and took the time to create this kit for them, showing empathy and care.
Some of the most appreciated initiatives were theater-type ones, as was the case in Slatina, where the children explained through well-thought-out scenes negative behaviors and how they can be stopped. Another surprising and effective example was the Q&A presentations on social and gender norms, in which parents were also involved.
More than 100 children from eight schools thus became ambassadors of non-violence in the counties of Dolj, Olt, Bacău, Bucharest, Gorj. The activities took place within the CARING project, Challenging social and gender norms to reduce violence against children in school.
Six children from three schools and their teachers will go to a special conference organized in Budapest in January to present their projects and meet colleagues from Bulgaria, Croatia and Greece, but also to discuss more about violence in schools. They were chosen following the evaluations of a children's committee together with a committee made up of managers and collaborators-trainers of the Terre des hommes Foundation, together with representatives of the Ministry of Education and the School Safety Directorate.
Through the CARING project, we raise the alarm on gender violence in schools in four countries in South-Eastern Europe (Romania, Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria), but we also bring to light the mechanisms that lead to the perpetuation of this phenomenon. In Romania, approximately 5,400 cases of violence were officially reported last school year, according to a spring announcement by the Ministry of Education.
