With Education Against Violence Toward Girls

The fourth report about activity on the project ,,Education against violence toward girls''

In last three months within of the project ,,Education against violence toward girls'' the activists of Center for Girls held 3 workshop and 6 forum theaters.

75 girls participated on wokrshops in Niš, Leskovac and Prokuplje. Some of the girls were shy at the beginning and didn't want to share their opinion with us, but shortly they start to actively participated in the workshop.

From the evaluation of the girls who passed the workshop you can see what they learned and what they liked:

• Anyone can be a victim of a violence.

• Bullies choose to be violent.

• The victim is not guilty for the violence that happens to her.

Workshops were done in two high schools and one elementary. The workshops were led by Irena Zivkovic and Mila Stanojevic.

The acivists of Center for Girls, played 6 forums theaters which saw 310 people in 3 towns in 6 schools. Through the form of forum theater, as a means of social change, we had managed to get close the young people serious topics which are concerned with the problems that affect us all.

Pupils were very active in a discussion after every performance in every school. They asked, suggested and commented roles and their action. We discussed what kind prejudices people have about the girl who survived the violence, that jealousy isn't love and that violence isn't private thing. Most common questions were about:

• why one of the characters didn't do more for her friend who were in violence,

• why the other friend of the victim thought it doesn't concern her problems that victim had with boyfriend,

• why victim didn't leave her boyfriend if he were violent to her.

A few girls in audience cried during the discussion. After every performance a few people from audience stayed after and talked to us about play.

Forum theaters were performed by Silvija Mihajlovic, Marija Virijevic, Marija Stojanovic and Tatjana NIkolic in 6 high schools.