Final evaluation of the Youth For Love project to raise young people’s awareness of gender-based violence 

Title Youth for Love

Location  Italia, Grecia, Belgio, Romania

Duration  2019 -2021

Project Leader ActionAid Italia

Partners  ActionAid Hellas, UC Limburg , AFOL-Agenzia Metropolitana per la Formazione, l’Orientamento e il Lavoro e CPE – Fundatia Centrul Partenariat Pentru Egalitate

Funding Programma REC – Rights Equality and Citizenship dell’Unione Europea

 

Context

In 2009, the European Parliament called on member states to adopt measures to prevent gender-based violence among young people, including targeted educational campaigns. The Parliament also called for better cooperation between stakeholders and the various environments affected by the phenomenon, such as families, schools, the public space and the media. Although legislative initiatives have been adopted by all member states, teenagers remain largely uncovered due to the lack of policies addressing their target age group and the fact that many of the actions implemented do not integrate a gender perspective and do not consider the cultural contexts of reference.

The project Youth For Love aimed to prevent and combat gender-based violence through an educational programme carried out in high schools in the four partner countries – Italy, Greece, Belgium and Romania. In particular, the project intended to develop educational tools and methodologies in order to prevent and manage gender-based violence situations in high schools; to educate and raise awareness of students, teachers and school staff through educational modules and activities and, ultimately, to raise the European public awareness on gender-based violence through a communication campaign consisting of a webgame, website,social media, national conferences and events, publications and stakeholder networking.

The project engaged, at European level, 13 high schools, more than 1200 students, almost 160 school staff and almost 3 million young europeans through the online webgame.

 

General Objective

The main aim of the final evaluation was to measure the degree of achievement of the project objectives during the 27 months of implementation.

 

Our contribution

The final evaluation has been based on three methodological components:

  • The analysis of the achievement of the indicators combined with the desk analysis of the project documents, and the data collected during the activities;
  • The use of a mixed-methods approach, qualitative and quantitative, that was able to take into consideration the perceptions of beneficiaries, stakeholders and project partners, as well as to include them directly and actively in the evaluation activities;
  • The use of a participatory approach enabling the promotion of a proactive attitude towards the evaluation.

The triangulation of the qualitative and quantitative analysis of collected data throughout the evaluation along with the desk analysis of project documentation allowed the assessment of the project according to the OCSE DAC criteria (OECD, 1992) as well as, building on the finding’s capitalization and learning, the elaboration of recommendations for the forthcoming Youth For Love II.

 

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