Engagement officer Emma updates us on the project learning resource for young people. What it’s about, what we hope it will achieve, what we’ve discovered through piloting and, most importantly, when it will be launched!
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We’re nearing the finish line in developing the project learning resource for young people so it seems like a good time for a quick update on our progress and what’s to come. It’s been almost a year since work began on the learning resource last summer and we’ve certainly come a long way since then! A huge thank you to all those who have contributed to the development of the resource so far.
The learning resource is designed to be used by young people in secondary schools and is tied in with the modern studies curriculum, although we think the lessons and activities would be equally useful for facilitators of youth groups. The resource focuses on themes of gender inequality, domestic abuse and violence against women and girls, and the role of activism in affecting social change. Throughout the lessons we use the history of the Women’s Aid movement in Scotland and the material collected by the Speaking Out project to frame these interconnected subjects.
We’ve identified the aims of the learning resource as follows:
- To highlight the critically important history of the Women’s Aid movement in Scotland and how it has affected both our understanding of and responses to domestic abuse and the development of a service provision for women, children and young people experiencing domestic abuse.
- To emphasise activism as a way of achieving successful and positive societal and legislative change.
- To promote an understanding on the part of young people of the connection between gender inequality and violence against women and girls.
- To encourage a greater understanding of what domestic abuse is and to help young people to be able to identify behaviours that are abusive.
We’ve been piloting activities from the learning resource over the past few months with Girl Guiding units in Glasgow and Edinburgh and two school classes in Glasgow. Their feedback has really helped to shape the resource. One trend that has emerged through the piloting is that many young people seem to believe gender equality has been achieved. This is concerning as we need young people to be active in fighting for increased rights and representation for women and girls and for an end to gender stereotyping which negatively impacts both girls and boys, men and women. Based off of this, we’ve included guidance for teachers and facilitators and evidence they can use to counter this commonly held idea.
Over the next month we’ll be finalising all the learning resource materials before sending them to our amazing graphic designer who will make sure the notes pack and learning booklet look fantastic and a far cry from their rather drab current Word document format a shown above.
The learning resource will be publicly launched on Tuesday, 29 August when it will become available for free to download from the project website. We’ll also be holding information evenings for those interested in using the learning resource on Tuesday, 29 August at Scottish Women’s Aid in Edinburgh and on Thursday, 31 August at Glasgow Women’s Library. Booking information will be made available shortly but for now save the date and please share with anyone you think might want to attend.
We’re so excited to launch the learning resource and hope that it will contribute to helping teachers and facilitators open up this incredibly important conversation about gender inequality and its connection to violence against women and girls. We also see the leaning resource as a fantastic opportunity to engage and inspire a new generation with the amazing history of Women’s Aid in Scotland.
‘The youth is the hope of our future.’
-Jose Rizal
