On January 29-31, 2007, representatives of “Path to Success!” NGO partners and 2007 grant awardees from Amurskaya oblast and Primorskii and Khabarovskii krais participated in two Trainings of Trainers on introducing the issue of domestic violence. The trainings were conducted by specialists from the St. Petersburg Crisis Center for Women.
Natalia Khodyreva, the director of the crisis center, informed participants about the prevalence and scale of domestic violence in Russia, the history of efforts to counteract its causes and effects, and current prevention and mitigation programs. At her training, Natalia stressed the importance of introducing strategies to enhance public awareness of domestic violence, developing NGO trainers’ skills in planning PR campaigns and public awareness activities, and preparing informational materials on prevention of violence in society. She also highlighted how critical it is to select the right target group, accurately define its needs, and clearly identify what goals you want to achieve through these efforts. Participants expressed gratitude for the training and stated that the knowledge and skills they had gained would be very useful as they finalized their plans for informational campaigns, activities and events to prevent human trafficking and violence against women.
Lyudmila Volga, a psychologist, trainer and consultant, prepared NGO representatives on how to conduct seminars and trainings on domestic violence prevention for different target groups (such as teens, students, teachers, and police). The major goal of her training was to help participants acquire basic methodological and practical skills to develop and conduct focused seminars and trainings on domestic violence prevention. The program was created in such a way that from the very beginning, participants were encouraged to give feedback on Lyudmila’s training approach, principles of conducting discussions, and other training techniques. Lyudmila particularly stressed the importance of professional conduct for the facilitator of seminars and trainings on domestic violence.
On the first day of the training, Natalia and Lyudmila introduced the problem of domestic violence, discussed major theoretic approaches to identifying and combating this problem, and surveyed trainees’ stereotypes of domestic violence. On the second day, participants discussed the issue of providing assistance to victims of domestic violence and methodological approaches to designing seminar and training programs for teens and adults. The third day aimed to teach NGO trainers skills for conducting seminars and trainings on domestic violence. The participants also discussed the theme of professional burnout that those in the “human-to-human” professions face in trying to counteract domestic violence and other forms of violence.
After the Training of Trainers was completed, all training participants noticed a positive shift in their own stereotypes of domestic violence. The majority of them also designed programs for future seminars and separate training modules during the training, and plan to vary their domestic violence and trafficking prevention programs with the help of videos and topics provided by the trainers.
During the training the representatives of Blagoveschensk NGO “Dialog”started to prepare the materials which they will use when developing a wide range of information and conducting a mass media awareness campaign in Amurskaya Oblast. The campaign will include the production and broadcasting of the TV program “Social Correspondent” on the state TV channel “Amur”, as well as the development of social commercials on domestic violence and trafficking in people for radio and TV. “Dialog” representatives interviewed the trainers from St. Petersburg, NGO trainers, who had the experience in conducting events aimed at preventing human trafficking and domestic violence, Path to Success! Program Chief of the Party, and Julie Heifetz, an American specialist in the sphere of gender education, who conducted trainings on gender themes in Khabarovsk and Blagoveschensk. Since the program topics are new to NGO “Dialog” the materials they prepared will be very helpful for them when realizing the project goals.
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