Webinar - Learning from the Our Voices Too Youth Advocacy Project: Working together with young people with lived experience in sexual violence advocacy activities
Posted: Fri Oct, 2019
On Monday 18th November, to mark the European Day on the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, the ‘International Centre, researching child sexual exploitation, violence and trafficking’ (IC) at the University of Bedfordshire, in the UK will be sharing findings from the Our Voices Too Youth Advocacy Project. As part of this project, the IC is working in partnership with three national NGOs in Europe: Different & Equal in Albania; the National Center for Child Abuse Prevention (NCCAP) in Moldova and ATINA in Serbia. Each organisation is working together with young people to implement participatory advocacy activities in their respective countries. The IC worked with the partner organisations to design a toolkit for adult facilitators from these three NGOs to help them support young people (Youth Advocates), who are current and former service users, to design and plan an advocacy campaign on sexual violence against children. Throughout the process a team of researchers at the IC have been collecting data to capture the learning from this project.
In this webinar Dr Silvie Bovarnick and Claire Cody will provide an overview of the project and share some learning that is emerging from the data. This will include reflections on the:
- Preparation and processes involved in working with Youth Advocates including reflections on ‘readiness’ for taking part
- Strategies employed by facilitators and the Youth Advocates to overcome challenges and tensions that arose during the project
- Value of engaging in this project for the Youth Advocates and organisations involved and;
- Learning around the ‘key ingredients’ for working together with young people with lived experience in sexual violence advocacy campaigns.
Following the webinar there will be time for a short Q&A with the team.
To join the webinar on Monday the 18th November at 12pm (UK time), and get access to the Zoom link, please contact claire.cody@beds.ac.uk