Girl power
Self defense and assertiveness as a tools of violence against girls prevention.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Sport
Other
Year the initative began (yyyy)
2007
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Project URL (include HTTP://)
Positioning of your initiative on the mosaic diagram:
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Stereotyping that excludes
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Use sport to build character
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
Gender stereotypes will be counteracted through showing the girls they are strong and have right to defend themselves physically and psychologically. The girls in Poland are socialized in a way that does not allow them to protect themselves. They are vulnerable (because they are not thought how to defend themselves) in terms of school and domestic violence. What is more, they can hardly expect the support from their teachers or parents. Apart from that Polish government and respective ministry are not capable of introduce the proper anti-violence prevention at schools. The girls are thought to be dependent, quiet and passive which victimizes them even more severely. Last year we had the opportunity to work with teenaged girls from middle schools (gimnazjum), in 2008 we would like to check how the situation looks like for younger girls. As we have some experience in schooling, we have gut feeling it is even worse, as teenagers are somehow forced by the circumstances to defend themselves, whereas primary school girls are often socialized enough to be shy, quiet and not sure about their strength and not “old” enough to be fed up with this patriarchal image (as sometimes are teenaged girls). What is more, the statistics show the phenomenon of violence in schools as rising and difficult to control. Unfortunately, there is no gender-oriented data selection, so it is not possible to estimate the real number of school violence victims. The same is with domestic violence – we know the approximate number of violent acts against children but nor police nor prosecutors collect data where gender would be indicated. On the other hand, considering from media information, the number of female victims aged 7-12 is really high, hence our project proposal address primary school girls.
Name Your Project
Girl power
Describe Your Idea
Self defense and assertiveness as a tools of violence against girls prevention.
Innovation
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence?
Self defense and assertiveness as a tools of violence against girls prevention.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field?
We are willing to help the girls from primary schools to be more self-confident, creative and sporty. Through WenDo workshops we are planning to show benefits from gender awareness and equality. As this method is truly reliable, we are sure that after the participation, they will be able to defy violence and gender discrimination. Our experience shows that after WenDo girls are able to defend themselves both physically and psychologically. The will be more self-esteemed and they will feel how powerful they are.
That is why we wish to empower girls through this special method of violence prevention called WenDo. This method combines two factors – physical techniques of self-defence as well as assertiveness. Indirectly, we wish to spread the idea out, as before every workshop we are planning to have information meeting for parents and interested teachers. And last but not least we wish (again, like for teenaged girls) to offer possibility of participation for the girls from the children houses.
What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change?
The problem of violence against girls is still not visible enough. We want to make it clear how deeply this phenomena is rooted in our society. We also want to rise the question why violence is not seen as against different sex in terms of children.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing?
We plan to introduce WenDo workshops for girls from Warsaw’s primary schools. The girls will be of age between 9 to 12, workshops will be carried out by 2 trainers (the trainer couple will conduct The education environment is very careful in allowing to enter the schools so we have to take time to convince their authorities that our project is worth conducting.
How do you plan to grow your innovation?
As this project is a continuation of the last year's project and we have already received financial support for part of this project form Mama CAsh, we are pretty sure there will not be any troubles in the future for this project to be continued. There are some interested schools willing to introduce WenDo for their female students. Besides, we are well known within the third sector in Poland hence, we are sure we will be more than welcome in other cities in Poland.
Impact
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact.
More strong girls - less violence victims.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries?
Directly: girls (9-12 age)
Indirectly: their parents; at least 7 schools in Warsaw.
Besides, thanks to information from different websites we can reach many people from all over Poland.
To sum up: the main beneficiaries will be aged 9-12, female from Warsaw and its suburbs, ¼ low economic status (planned).
(Thanks to last year’s project Centers of Social Help (O?rodki Pomocy Spo?ecznej) got acquainted with the idea of WenDo and now we are working on some projects together; perhaps this year if we got the grant we will be able to attract more centers)
How many people have you served directly?
Already (counting WenDo for girls and not for adult women) around 100.
How many people have you served indirectly?
definitely more than 300 (without so called "general public" that we reached even recently thanks to articles in Polish newspaper)
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation?
(A) Change in girls’ perception (of themselves and of their strength) will be measured through evaluation forms (questionnaires), e-mails (as before) and through oral evaluation;
(B) Change in schools’ perception of the necessity of self-defense for girls. This will be measured through the number of school.
(C) Parents involvement will be measured by the number of interested parents.
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact?
Fortunately, after project for teenagers, we cannot see any serious obstacles. We expect lots of girls will be willing to come. We also know many parents who want their daughters to attend to WenDo; some of them sent their older daughters to WenDo last year and now they are waiting for their younger to attend.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)?
By Mama Cash only. Polish donors (especially governmental) were not intersted in our project. we wish that after the change in Polish political scene there will be some movements within the field of gender stereotypes and approach to girls education and sport for girls as well.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization.
There are 3 people full time, 4 part time, 3 volunteers. Annual budget was in 2006 around 60.000 EUR.
What is the potential demand for your innovation?
Change in schools, eduactional approach, girls self-esteeem.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability?
Probabely Polish situation: lack of stability, lack of accountability and transparency in terms of spending public money and the fact we are feminist organization which was not well seen by the previous government.
The Story
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
In our organization there are 2 certified wendo trainers and 2 former teachers. Thus we decided to implement WenDo.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material.
Ewa Rutkowska: WenDo trainer, project coordinator and a board member in Feminoteka Foundaton. Graduated from philosophy currently working on PhD.
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate? (this is confidential)
From Mama Cash. I would like to take part in the competition but also found out possibly as much as I can about other initiatives in Europe.
Affiliation (please list all that apply)
Other
