SCI Madrid hosted a DETOX YOUR PROJECT seminar about Reacting to Toxic Masculinity in Youth & Volunteering Projects that took place at the end of May in Madrid, Spain. With this seminar SCI Madrid wants to address the problem, enable facilitators to deal with toxic masculinity in their projects and share methods in a toolkit. Many young people came to the capital of Spain, there were 16 participants from more than 10 different countries, including Armenia, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Italy, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Turkey and others.

In the seminar, the attendees talked about toxic masculinities and how to deal with this behavior in youth work. The trainers helped to create a common base of knowledge that participants could build up on during the seminar. It was important to organize a safe place to discuss topics like gender roles, sexism and patriarchy and to give participants the opportunity to share their own experiences with others.

At the end of the training, a lot of positive feedback was received: “It was an incredible moment to reflect and share experiences”; “I loved the international atmosphere and the interesting conversations”; “This week was a wonderful experience for me! I have learned a lot and have done amazing friendships.”.

Special thanks to Mira, Sima* and Eva, the trainers who accompanied the group during the week of the seminar, and SCI Germany for their collaboration. The project was financed by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme.

Thanks to Polina for this update.