“With and For Girls – support to local Youth Offices in raising awareness in the area of gender equality “

Today, in the premises of Culture Center of Nis, an event took place as a part of project “With and For Girls  – support to local Youth Offices in raising awareness in the area of gender equality“.

The project has been implemented since April by the Organization for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings “Atina“ from Belgrade, with an effort to promote gender equality and decrease risk of gender-based violence among the youth.

Lidija Djordjevic from the Citizens Association “Atina” from Belgrade has explained that, in cooperation with the Youth Office, today and tomorrow, this organization has been maintaining mentoring work with the youth, the girls - representatives of the Youth Office, high school girls and everyone who is active within the Office.  

 “We are talking about gender-based violence, and our idea today is to focus on gender roles, different forms of gender-based violence in our society, and to strive to familiarize the youth, primarily the girls, with the phenomena. We would like to explore the correlation among gender equality, gender roles, discrimination, and lastly direct relation to violence, and to digital violence that has been on the rise recently”, stated Djordjevic, adding that they already have experience when it comes to cooperation with the girls from Nis, thanks to the existing cooperation with Youth Office in Nis.

 “Today, however, we are continuing our mentoring work with the idea to hear what problems they recognize, that are related to gender-based violence and gender equality, locally in Nis. We are also striving to help them, so they can, with our support and the support of Youth Office, organize themselves certain activities that will raise awareness on these issues in Nis.”

Jovan Milic, who was the Coordinator of the Youth Office in Nis, explained how the cooperation with “Atina” was initiated.

“Sometime in the beginning of the year we received the invitation from the Organization “Atina” from Belgrade, to become engaged in their project as a Youth Office. Thanks to the support of the Mayor of Nis, who is the first female mayor in the history of this city, we gladly endorsed the organization of the event together with Youth Offices from city municipalities that have invited the girls to participate.”, said Milic, and revealed what this cooperation entailed:

“Throughout the year they have attended different trainings, they were also engaged in certain activities in Belgrade, filming videos, and in a way, building and promoting gender equality. This is not the first project implemented by the Youth Office that pertains to gender equality. There are many projects we, as a Youth Office, are part of, that my successors will continue pursuing. Since I have become a representative in the City Assembly in Nis, I am no longer Youth Office Coordinator, however, I am certainly glad be an honorable guest in such an event, that is actually the conclusion of a long-standing project. 

Emilija Jovanovski, coordinator of the Youth Office in City Municipality Palilula, has said that she is one of the participants in the workshop.

“We have started our cooperation with non-governmental organization Atina back in the beginning of this year. We have had several sessions, online workshops, then my colleague Sofija and myself took part in a workshop they hosted in Belgrade, during the International Day of Violence against Women. This is the third session, where we will also discuss gender equality and raising the awareness of the citizens, so that people become familiarized with the importance of gender-equality”, said Jovanovski, and then noted what specific issues have been discussed in these events:

“In one of the mentoring workshops “With and For Girls” we were discussing that gender equality means, that we all have equal chances and equal rights. We were promoting fighting against stereotypes, judgement, labeling, discrimination, all forms of violence, expectations that girls should only be pretty and good housewives, because we want to create the world that believes in dignity and potential of each person, and to support them in their goals and help them achieve them.”

“With and For Girls – project, support to local Youth Offices in raising awareness in the area of gender-equality” Citizens Association Atina for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and all Forms of Gender-Based Violence with the support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has been implementing from April 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022.  

"With and For Girls" project is aiming at promoting gender-equality and decreasing risk of gender-based violence among the youth, with special emphasis on online violence, has been conducted within the joint project "Integrated response to violence against women and girls in Serbia II", realized by UNICEF, UN Women, UNFPA and UNDP, in partnership with the Government of the Republic of Serbia, and with the support of the Government of Sweden. The project has been implemented in the local youth offices in Belgrade, Nis and Subotica.

The original text can be found via the following link: https://gradskiportal018.rs/2021/12/20/odrzan-zavrsni-dogadjaj-projekta-...