On 08December 8, 2022 starting at 1:15 p.m. in cabinet number 9 of the High School for Textiles, Leather and Design Sarajevo, the second workshop was held within the framework of the Ethos initiative project. The workshop was realized by Samra Šljivo, a psychologist, and the topic of the workshop was: “LET’S BE ENCOURAGED – LET’S SPEAK UP”, and the goal of the workshop is to educate students to recognize the types of gender-based violence: physical, verbal, psychological, sexual and economic violence.
Encourage students to share their own experiences in a supportive environment and be supportive of each other, as well as to condemn gender-based violence. Through the conversation with the students on these topics, they talked about whether they experienced any of the mentioned types of violence and how they coped or are still coping with it.
The students did not hesitate to share their experiences and expressed their desire to discuss male-female relations, stereotyping of gender roles, femicide and human sexuality. The leader of the workshop asked the students if they knew how to report violence and who to contact, then she explained to them what resources are available to them (police, Centers for Social Work, SOS telephone, Blue telephone – Counseling line for children in Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Dynamic discussions developed that opened up numerous questions. Given the time limit of an hour and a half, it was not possible to cover all of the mentioned topics and answer all the questions. The students reacted positively to the workshop, they praised the coordinator’s relaxation and openness and expressed their desire to hold more workshops in the future in which the above-mentioned issues would be elaborated. The lesson of the activity is that we need to condemn gender-based violence, talk about it and work on its prevention, and all aspects and segments of society, not only the non-governmental sector or through schools.
The workshop was attended by 5 students from the Student Council, 3 members of the Civitas section and 7 students from the first grade.
