About the Project

The Gender Effect is a training of trainers on gender education. During one week, 27 young professionals from all over Europe and beyond came together to explore, learn from and develop skills within the various aspects related to the topic of gender. The aim was to enhance the competences of the participants in regards to identifying gender violence and discrimination in all forms as well as how to react to them. More specifically, the participants received training on various gender-related issues and developed their skills as trainers, coordinators and facilitators.

To know more about The Gender Effect, we asked Thomas, one of the facilitators and coordinators of the training, about its purpose. He explained how few years ago, research about gender-based discrimination within SCI volunteering camps was published, which showed the many ways in which gender oppression/ discrimination/ violence/ etc. still exist within our projects. 

“We often think that SCI is a safe place for everyone, that we bring people from a different background together, make them meet and create a culture of peace. We realized through research that there is still sexism, homophobia, transphobia within our volunteering camps and our volunteering projects. We created this training to counter that and to create a space where people from SCI get educated on gender and find mutuals to fight these discriminations” he said.

During the training, the participants tried different methods. Seminar, workshops, debates etc…  Zana, a representant of GAIA Kosovo, told us about her favorite activities: 

Silent exhibition

“We had the opportunity to walk around the room while we silently answered different questions on paper, we saw some informative videos, short documentaries and other content.” 

Visiting the trans-feminist social center: Auro E Marco

During the training, the participants had the opportunity to visit Auro E Marco – a social center in the south of Rome in which locals work on various topics but with particular focus on gender-based and LGBTQIA+ issues. 

Zana: “We went to visit a trans-feminist community where they explained about the area they live in, how they created something by themselves and did something for the community to feel free. They have a small library with different types of femminist books and it was very cool to hear about the whole process of how they came to the point that they are at now.” 

The public workshop

On the evening of the 14th of April, the training culminated with a public event coordinated by the participants themselves in the spaces of La Città dell’Utopia in the south of Rome. Here, the participants discussed the contents of the training while including the guests’ creativity in their activities. More specifically, the participants created and designated different words related to the topic of gender to multiple teams. It was then up to the different teams to illustrate their specific word through a picture using their surroundings and afterwards guess the words of the other teams. It created a lot of productive discussions around the topic, awareness for newcomers as well as for persons with experience and not least laughter between the participants and the local neighborhood.

The Gender Effect is a project of Servizio Civile Internazionale Italia in partnership with CVS Bulgaria, INEX, GAIA, SCI Germany, SCI Austria, SCI Catalunya, SCI France, VSI Ireland, Volonterski centar Vojvodine, AYA Volunteer Center, PVN Albania, ISKRA, OWA Poland and SSD Jordan and co-financed by the Erasmus+ of the European Union.