Empowerment, Vitality and Assertiveness - Female Education in Mentoring (EVA-FEM)

EMPOWERMENT, VITALITY AND ASSERTIVENESS - FEMALE EDUCATION IN MENTORING (EVA-FEM) aims to bring together 40 young women and girls from 5 different countries.

EVA-FEM is a project to develop competences around the well-being of disadvantaged young women who have experienced different psychosocial threats and exclusion, immigrants, victims from conflict and disaster, traumatic events like spinal injury, victims of physical or sexual violence, women with stress and trauma, transgender women, and additionally for young females from the wider community who may have had a personal crisis. The project intends to empower the young women, promote independence and increase competences and different types of communication skills that will enhance their psychosocial well-being.

The main aims are to empower and integrate young women and girls who are disadvantaged giving them a sense of their identity and value and their improve their competences and strengths by exploring the self-confidence gained through self-defense and different empowerment tools. Ultimately they will explore the need to create a framework for a course of self-defense and empowerment which they themselves may go on to teach.

Aggression can take many forms. Martial arts and self-defense are not just a physical response to violent aggression. Self-defence is firstly about not putting yourself in danger and always being prepared. Self-defense is the realisation of what constitutes an attack and that physical aggression is often an escalated level of attack that began with a verbal confrontation or some imagined slight. Self-defence is about defusing those situations before they have had time to escalate. A physical response is the last line of defence.

Additionally, studies have shown that by being physically active, and the strength and stamina that is developed, some conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression and high blood pressure can be eliminated or reduced. The stronger sense of values and identity that is developed through martial arts can help disadvantaged women and girls to maintain a higher level of independence which increases self-esteem and self-confidence which can lead to education and employment opportunities.

EVA FEM will create resilience for young women who have had significant life events so that they gain the ability to react and adapt positively to difficult and challenging events and experiences and bounce back from them in a positive way

EVA-FEM will show that sport can change the lives of young women from different disadvantaged backgrounds in Europe and beyond to get them more involved and integrated into society and also make them happier and more motivated.

To address these issues three youth exchanges will be organized involving self-defense, sports and outdoor activities. These activities will be based on non-formal and informal education methods.

The activities allow the improvement of skills and potential in self-defense and provide self-motivation, self esteem, a sense of safety and independence to the participants. The participants will have the opportunity to get an insight into self-defense tactics and gain new experiences and use their abilities and knowledge to improve their skills. They will learn to share their feelings and how to build trust.

The activities will be monitored by experts who have dealt with disadvantaged people and women and girls for a long time.
The objectives are to show that young women and girls are able to share and take responsibility; that they can participate and cooperate successfully in society.

The context and objectives revolve around the topics of inclusion, equity, gender violence, gender discrimination, and the empowerment of women in general but specifically those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The tools will empower women by strengthening friendships, and communities, changing self-perceptions of people from different cultural and, economic backgrounds.