CarMia (Caring Masculinities in Action) Final Conference in Graz: Active Involvement of Young People to Combat Gender-Based Violence

The final international conference of the CarMia project to prevent gender-based violence through the active involvement of young people and the promotion of a change in the attitudes of men and boys in relation to dominant male role models took place in Graz, Austria. In addition to the opening speeches by Elli Scambor, Director of the Austrian Institute for Research on Masculinity, and Mart Busche (lecturer at ASH Berlin), experts from six European project partner countries presented essential results, materials and methods during lectures and workshops. The conference was supported by the European Union, the Austrian Social Ministry and the Styria Region/Department of Education and Society.

Final conference of the CarMia project

The conference alternated theoretical lectures with exchanges, working groups, and viewing of videos produced in the individual countries by students involved in the project's awareness-raising campaign. At the end, there was a panel in which students exchanged their experiences in terms of peer education. The videos showed various examples of gender-based violence, including offensive online comments, sexual abuse, catcalling, and how to combat them. The videos made in Italy are available on the youtube channel of the Istituto degli Innocenti.

The peer educators discussed their experiences, what motivated them to work for the project, the positive aspects and the difficulties they encountered showing great enthusiasm for the work. The seven working groups highlighted different methodologies to work on violence prevention: from the use of art to theatrical methods and pop culture. They also addressed emerging issues such as the manosphere, i.e., websites that promote chauvinist views of society, how to work for gender justice, and how to promote resilience factors in the face of gender-based violence. The next event for Italy will be the national conference in January.

European “Caring Masculinities in Action” project

The European CarMia project was coordinated by the Istituto degli Innocenti and implemented together with partners from several European countries: Dissens (Germany); Institute for Masculinity Research and Gender Studies (Austria); Center of Women's Studies and Policies (Bulgaria); Peace Institute (Slovenia); Asociación de Hombres por la Igualdad de Género (Spain). The initiative is aimed at adolescents, while the target group of the training activities are professionals working with children and young people, such as teachers, sports coaches, social workers, but also the children themselves and other local, national and EU actors.

The central objective of the project is to combat gender-based violence. The goals that CarMia has tried to achieve through various activities are: surveying needs through consultations with groups of adolescents; holding training meetings for teachers, operators and high school students; organising seminars for adolescents using the peer education methodology and the active involvement of young people as agents of change; developing a special online package of training material. The activities also involved the digital world through promotion and dissemination of the project results via websites, social media and an awareness-raising campaign. CarMia, implemented within the framework of the Call for Proposals to prevent and combat gender-based violence and violence against children - Cerv-2021-Daphne, will end on 28 February 2024.