We are looking for 2 participants for the International Training «The Gender Effect», which will take place in Rome from 10 to 16 April!
*To participate in the international seminars or trainings, you only need to become a member of SCI Switzerland. The travel costs, your participation fee, food and accommodation are covered by SCI Switzerland and the Movetia Foundation.
About the Project
Let’s talk about gender! A few years ago, research about gender-based discrimination within SCI volunteering camps was published and it showed the many ways how gender oppression/ discrimination/ violence/ etc. exist within our projects. In many projects, we still face a sexist division of work, sexual harassment, sexist and queerphobic jokes or sometimes also just a lack of awareness around gender and LGBTQIA-related issues. How do we react to this? How can we create safer spaces?
What you can expect from this training:
- more awareness around what gender-based discrimination and violence is
- queerfeminist educational and conflict resolution tools to adress gender-based conflict (e.g. microaggressions, sexism, etc.)
- non-formal education methods to address gender in volunteering and youth projects
- self-reflection about your own practice as a coordinator/organiser/activist
- sharing best practices with other coordinators, organisers and activists
- getting to know many great people from around Europe and Southwest Asia
Outcome: In addition to the above, in this training, we want to create guidelines for camp coordinators to address gender-based discrimination. The guidelines will be published as an addition to the existing SCI toolkit around gender “Free to be you and me”.
COVID-19 during the training
At this point, we assume that it will be possible to organize the training in person in Italy in April, but we will have to see how the situation around COVID-19 develops. We will ask all participants to be fully protected from COVID-19 (e.g. vaccinated with booster shot, recently recovered from COVID-19). We will have a hygiene concept for the group during the training and will follow all regulations by the authorities.
Participant’s profile
The project aims to gather 26 participants (1-2 per partner organization). The participants will be youth workers, trainers as well as staff, activists, camp coordinators and active volunteers from volunteering organizations. All participants selected for this project should meet the following criteria
- be 18 years old or older
- be able to work in English
- be interested in the training topics and have a strong motivation to act as a multiplier
- able to attend for the full duration of the training
- If somehow possible and feasible, be committed to come to the training without flying, and to travel instead by overland route.
We explicitly encourage participants of all classes, educational backgrounds, genders, sexual orientations, abilities and ethnic backgrounds to apply. Unfortunately, the venue is not wheelchair-accessible.
Logistics, financial conditions and sustainability
- Simple life: The training will take place in La Città dell’Utopia in Rome, which is a community house with simple living conditions. You will sleep in a room shared with few other people.
- Money, money, money: We can cover all essential costs of the program (including food, travel costs up to a maximum amount per country, visa costs, accommodation and training) through a European project grant by Erasmus+. Your sending organisation might ask for a small participation fee.
- Sustainable food: The food we provide will be vegan/vegetarian. This is not just a practical decision, but also an ideological one: SCI believes in the values of sustainability and climate justice – and if we want to contribute to a more peaceful planet, we need to give up on industrialized animal agriculture and its destructive effects on our planet. In the application form you can tell us, if you have any diets, allergies or intolerances that we should be aware of.
- Sustainable travels?: This is also why we ask you to come to this training through more sustainable means of transport rather than flying (e.g. by train or bus), if somehow possible. We will give you more guidance on how you can reach the venue, once you are accepted to the training.
How to apply?
If you would like to participate in the training, please send an email to Loretta Scherler (loretta.scherler@scich.org as soon as possible.
All those accepted will later receive a detailed infosheet (incl. info on how to get to the venue, how to book your travels, more info about the agenda of the project).
We are looking forward to your application 🙂