Highlighting AwareNess of male ADolescent footballers IN the figHt Against geNder-baseD violence

ongoing

Violence against women represents a pervasive and widespread phenomenon in nowadays EU societies. A noteworthy aspect is that gender-based violence is sometimes difficult to recognize, due to its multifaceted forms and embeddedness in various forms of patriarchal mentality. In light of its positive values shared with the EU, sport can be a valuable tool to fight gender-based violence and create a new culture of gender equality and women respect. The main aim of HAND IN HAND is to use sport to fight gender-based violence. We use a novel approach where sport is a tool to achieve a social aim and it is meant to change a stereotypically-male culture where women are considered as passive objects. Specific aims are: making sport environments educational contexts where young male players can be educated to women respect; fostering sport associations/institutions policy change toward women respect; promoting a sport culture where violence is rejected and women are fully respected. The main action is to provide a methodology to educate males and female players to contrast gender-based violence, collaborate with an engaged stakeholder group to create guidelines to empower sport associations with the ability to plan actions for contrasting violence against women. The collaborative partnership is composed of 2 Football (Italy as the applicant, Albania) and 1 Hockey (France) National Federations, 1 multisport hub composed of major sport associations (Bulgaria), 1 EU sport association (EuroHockey), 1 NGO and 1 university expert in gender equality and violence against women, 1 training association, with UEFA support. This partnership can communicate to a wide audience also with the use of role models. Special attention in the direction of sustainability is on digital training tools (including a multi-language online course and guidelines), which help producing cultural change.