Youth Living Peace

  • P Project/Program

I Inactive

Key Information

Youth Living Peace is a three-year program, which began in 2015, to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence against girls and women in high-violence settings in Brazil and in post-conflict settings in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). By engaging youth as agents of change from a young age, Youth Living Peace is designed to help adolescent boys and girls heal from violence, while providing critical school-based training for violence prevention. The program’s overall goal is that adolescent girls and boys experience greater gender equality and increased freedom from violence through individual and community change, as well as supportive school environments. Youth Living Peace is led by Promundo in Brazil and Heal Africa in DRC, and supported by the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. The program targets adolescent girls and boys who have witnessed and/or experienced violence in their homes, while engaging them to promote respect, gender equality, and nonviolence through group and individual therapy, group education, and school-wide campaigns. In addition, the program promotes partnerships and advocacy with schools and with policymakers to provide the framework for preventing and responding to violence more broadly. By engaging adolescent girls and boys, community members, educators, government officials, and civil society organizations, Youth Living Peace works at multiple levels to prevent violence against women and girls and to respond to the needs of adolescents who have experienced violence. It serves to provide and increase awareness of services to respond to and address these adolescents’ needs, as well as to encourage critical thinking and changes in attitudes and behaviors in order to prevent future perpetration of violence. Youth Living Peace builds on Promundo’s and its implementing partner organizations’ evidence-based experiences in the prevention of violence against women and girls through group education (Program H and Program M) and group therapy (Living Peace), which have been implemented and adapted in over 22 countries. It also adopts ideas inspired by a rigorously evaluated US-based intervention (Expect Respect), which provides group support for adolescents who have witnessed or experienced violence, particularly in dating relationships. These methodologies provide the foundation for Youth Living Peace, and they are being implemented in each country in school settings. Youth Living Peace aims to reach 1,100 adolescents, 8,840 community members, as well as educational staff and stakeholders in education policy by the end of 2017.


Location(s)

Latin America & Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa

Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Government Affiliation

Non-governmental program

Years

2015 - 2018

Partner(s)

Not applicable or unknown

Ministry Affiliation

Unknown

Funder(s)

UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women

COVID-19 Response

Unknown

Geographic Scope

Global / regional

Meets gender-transformative education criteria from the TES  

Unknown

Areas of Work Back to Top

Education areas

Other

  • Other

Quality

  • School-related gender-based violence
  • School violence

Cross-cutting areas

  • Gender equality
  • Social and gender norms and beliefs
  • Violence (at home, in relationships)

Program participants

Target Audience(s)

Boys (both in school and out of school), Girls (both in school and out of school), Youth

Age

Not applicable or unknown

School Enrolment Status

Some in school

School Level

  • Upper primary
  • Lower secondary
  • Upper secondary

Other populations reached

  • Community leaders
  • School administrators
  • Spouses/partners

Participants include

Not applicable or unknown

Program Approaches Back to Top

Community engagement/advocacy/sensitization

  • Technical assistance/capacity building to civil society organizations or governments

Life skills education

  • Negotiation skills

Other

  • Other activities to address/end violence (not captured above)

Policy/legal environment

  • Advocating changes to existing laws/policies
  • Developing/promoting new laws/policies
  • Raising awareness about existing laws/policies

School-related gender-based violence

  • Anti-violence policies and codes of conduct
  • Safe channels/mechanisms for reporting violence
  • Support in and around schools (e.g. peer counseling, adult-to-student counseling)
  • Training of school personnel (including teachers)
  • Violence prevention curriculum/activities for students

Social/gender norms change

  • Group activities with students or school-age children/adolescents
  • Work with community leaders

Women's empowerment programs

  • Advocacy/action

Program Goals Back to Top

Education goals

Not applicable or unknown

Cross-cutting goals

  • Changed social norms
  • Increased knowledge of rights
  • More equitable gender attitudes and norms
  • Reduced intimate partner violence
  • Reduced school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV)
  • Reduced violence against children in the home