EMPOWER

Domestic violence represents one of the biggest problems in the evolution of today’s society. In 2017, #metoo movement had a worldwide impact on the topic of sexual abuse, with more and more young girls and young women sharing their experiences. Although 2017 was marked by this hashtag, the phenomenon of domestic violence is present in daily life of women all across Europe in multiple forms: physical, emotional, financial or sexual. Giving the latest reports on domestic violence, at a European level, 33% of women have experienced physical violence, while 11 % had been victim of sexual abuse, but there is a lack of comparable data due to differences in the national legislation and the lack of reporting the abuse (European Parliament, 2016). Considering geographical differences, as well as cultural and religious differences, it is hard to have a clear view of the statistics worldwide, but monitoring the latest reports at a national level, as well as the movements that fight against domestic violence of any sort, EMPOWER project aims at supporting practitioners in the field of youth and social services to gain competences to recognize, act efficiently and prevent domestic violence amongst girls and women.
The objectives of the project are:
• To develop the competences in recognising signs of domestic violence of any sorts (physical, emotional, financial) at women and girls;
• To exchange good practices in the field of intervention in case of domestic violence between partner countries;
• To create procedural compatibility in the field of preventing and combating domestic violence;
• To ensure the availability of important data regarding domestic violence from the partner countries;
• To develop packages with information for victims and professionals, offering an opportunity to include the results of the project in the future education and trainings of practitioners in the field;
The actions we will undertake in order to reach the set objectives are as follows:
• Kick-off meeting;
• Monitoring and analysing social policies, methods and tools used for preventing and combating domestic violence in all partner countries;
• Developing a research methodology to be used by all partners at a national level, in order to identify the common grounds that lead to domestic violence, as well as the risk effects;
• Conducting training courses for practitioners in the field of youth and education, in order for them to gain valuable competences in recognising, acting and reporting cases of domestic violence;
• Developing a guideline of working procedures for practitioners in the field of youth and education, that will allow them to work efficiently with young women victims of gender based violence;
• To develop handbooks for women that will allow them to ease the process of identifying different types of gender based violence;
The foreseen results are:
• 5 national researches regarding the phenomena of domestic violence, its causes and effects, as well as measures across Europe to tackle it;
• At least 40 practitioners in the field of youth and social services trained with the competences needed to identify, act and report cases of domestic violence;
• A guideline for practitioners in the field, guideline that will present work procedures for preventing and combating gender based violence in local communities across partner countries;
• A handbook for young women and practitioners that will ease the process of preventing and combating domestic violence in the local communities;

The active target group of the project is represented by practitioners in the field of youth, education and social services, such as social workers, case managers, jurists, lawyers, nurses, educators, pedagogues, teachers, professors, youth workers and other national and European stakeholders, public and private institutions, politicians, EU networks. These experts will improve the quality of the deliverables produced during the training course, as well as assure the sustainability of the project, by working directly with the main beneficiaries of the project, young women victims of any forms of domestic violence.

Our main beneficiaries are young women victims of domestic violence, from rural and small urban communities from the partner countries. The reason we chose the target group is based on the difficulties they face in the partner countries, difficulties related to their residence, or the victim's’ ability to action within the family context, the existence of a social service provider close to her/his location, as well as the possibility to find a pro-bono lawyer, services mandatory in providing qualitative measures for preventing and combating violence.