Toolbox — For Training and Youth Work
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Simulation Exercise, Exercise, Group Building Activity
This set of cards is a tool to stimulate educational conversations about violence in intimate relationships among teenagers and among adults and teenagers. A set of cards to deal with violence, gender and relationships in educational settings.
We decided not to give a set of strict rules to play but instead, we identified five educational functions that can be performed with the cards and that can be combined to develop workshops about violence in intimate relationships, both with teenagers and adults.
1. Conversation: This is the primary function the whole pack can perform. The stories in particular
are designed to create a fictional scenario within which participants can learn to deal with complex issues in a safe space and to exchange views on their emotions, values and opinions drawing on the experiences of the characters. The stories can be read in small groups, and few generative questions can be given by the facilitator to help participants frame the discussion. Questions can deal with an array of perspectives: emotions, roles, social expectations and so on.
2. Identification: The pack is designed to promote identification with the experiences and emotions lived by the characters, meaning by identification the deep ability to put oneself in the shoes of others and to experience his/her point of view. The emotional and relational key word cards can be used to explore the feelings and emotions of each character and to compare them with the ones of the participants; while each story can be read picking up the perspective of one of the characters (like the victim, the perpetrator, the family, the teachers...) allowing participants to prove themselves with different viewpoints.
3. Deconstruction: The pack is also designed to help participants understanding how socio-cultural models of gender, sexuality and relationship shape individual behaviours and deconstructing stereotypes and prejudices. The common sense cards are explicitly designed for this function: they question statements of common sense that lie behind belief and behaviours about identities and relationships – like differentiated expectations on boys and girls - and can be used to open up a second layer discussion. They can be used alone as generative stimulus, or they can be integrated in the process of reading, discussing and deconstructing the stories. 4. Naming and framing: The definition cards are designed to help naming and framing effectively the experiences explored with the other cards. They can help participants to locate the group discussion within a wider framework and to compare the lexicon of meanings on violence in intimate relationships created within the group with those elaborated by the institutions. They can be used by the facilitator to support a debriefing session of the workshop or by the participants themselves to ask for support within a group discussion.
5. Generating: Overall function of the pack is to generate new thoughts and new attitudes toward
intimate relationships: in order to overcome stereotypes and role models and to promote freedom, self-determination and mutual respect. All the stories are open ended, meaning that they can be re-written adding new characters and/or changing the characters’ choices and behaviours. The character cards as well as the landscape ones can be used to create brand new stories, drawing upon the creativity of the participants; participants can also create their own new card to add what they think is missing in the pack in terms of definitions, key words, characters, common sense statements or landscapes.
Description of the tool: The pack consists of 58 cards sorted 5 categories: characters, landscapes, emotional and relational key words, common sense statements and definitions. A facilitator is needed to guide the play and stimulate discussions.
The character cards depict 10 different people that can be potentially involved in a situation of violence with different positions: as victims, perpetrators, witnesses, rivals or supporters. Some cards represent a single character, while others represent a group of people like friends or family.
The landscape cards depict 10 different sceneries of ordinary life, like an urban space, a classroom or a party. They portray also online sceneries like a Facebook group or a chat on WhatsApp because we believe that online environments can be fully-fledged considered landscapes of ordinary life.
The emotional and relational key word cards are 21 meaningful words concerning people’s approach toward relationships. They describe emotions – like rage or shame; attitudes toward oneself or the others - like trust or care; and feelings - like vulnerability or pride.
The common sense cards consist of 11 statements that put into question stereotypical, but widely shared opinions on how boys and girls should behave or feel concerning sexuality, emotions or gender expression.
The definition cards represent 6 key statements defining as many phenomena that we identify as crucial for the purpose of this tool, such as gender based violence, sexual harassment or sexism. They draw upon a variety of institutional and trusted sources: to define gender based violence, violence in intimate relationship and sexual harassment we consulted the most recent research report and official definition of the European Commission and of the United Nations; while in order to write the definition of violence against children, we relied on the definition of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Article 19 of the UNCRC, the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child. For the definition of bulling we adapted the renowned definition coined by Dan Olweus and acquired by UNESCO. For the definition of sexism we worked upon the definition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Alongside the cards, attached to this booklet you will find nine stories. They are not “true” stories, but they are grounded in the opinions and experiences of the teenagers we consulted during the project. Each story tackles violence in intimate relationships among teenagers from a different perspective in terms of main character, typology of experience and challenges to be met. They are nuanced on purpose, meaning that each story has its own internal complexity that forces the reader to avoid easy answers and to reflect on the different elements the story puts into question.
SALTO cannot be held responsible for the inappropriate use of these training tools. Always adapt training tools to your aims, context, target group and to your own skills! These tools have been used in a variety of formats and situations. Please notify SALTO should you know about the origin of or copyright on this tool.
http://toolbox.salto-youth.net/2672
This tool is for
Teenagers, youth workers, teachers. Ideal group size: 10-30 players.
and addresses
Conflict Management, Gender issues
It is recommended for use in:
Capacity Building
Materials needed:
The set of cards, a table and chairs, some white papers and pens.
Duration:
1 session of 3 hours or 3 sessions of 2 hours each
The tool was created by
Comunità Nuova Onlus, CODICI|Research and Intervention in Italy, Youth for Youth Foundation in Romania, Fryshuset in Sweden, Middlesex University in the United Kingdom
in the context of
“Me&You&Everyone We Know” is a European Commission funded project within the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme 2014/2020, and it is one of the transnational actions implemented to combat sexual harassment and
The tool has been experimented in
High education institutions of Italy, Sweden and Romania
The tool was published to the Toolbox by
francesca zamboni (on 29 December 2019)
and last modified
3 December 2019
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