Peer to Peer Education Project
From Girl to Girl – Community-Led Peer Education through Sports
The “From Girl to Girl: Community-Led Peer Education through Sports” project gathered girls and young women in awareness sessions on gender equality through football in the form of community led peer – to – peer educational sessions and games.
The girls and young women who conducted this peer – to – peer community led education program through sports are affiliated with Stars Academy of Sports (SAS), a leading soccer academy and team in Lebanon. SAS was established in 2011 and continues to provide football players with advanced training and the chance to participate in national and international tournaments.
Activities
In the framework of this project, a training of trainer workshop on soft skills and gender equality was organized by UNESCO in May 2016. The workshop targeted 20 young women in Beirut (15 of which were affiliated with SAS football team and 5 from ABAAD existing GBV structures in the communities).
A group of 25 girls aged between 14 and 19 were trained on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th July. The training was based on the “Playing for Gender Equality” toolkit produced in 2013 by ABAAD and Save the Children. This toolkit provided participating girls with basic knowledge related to gender equality, gender based violence and gender discrimination. It is to be noted that these concepts were introduced, and discussed through interactive and fun methods.
Additionally, participating girls were introduced to the different forms of GBV through video screening “Ana Ahlam”, followed by working groups and plenary discussion. Moreover, participants were introduced to the “Women and Girls’ Safe Spaces – WGSS”, where the sport actions took place, namely in Jbeil, Rahbeh, Qobbeh, Bint Jbeil, Msaytbeh, Ghobeiry, Choueifat and Zahle.
After the two day workshop, the series of eight community led activities through sports was kicked off on July 22nd, in communities, in areas where ABAAD has already established links through the Women and Girls Safe Spaces (WGSS). The activities targeted a total of 144 girls from the local communities (65% of which were Syrian and 35% were from Lebanese host communities), and included interactive ice-breaking exercise through football games, football game between SAS and young girls from the community, discussion among girls (led by SAS) on girl’s aspirations, hobbies, perceptions towards sports, etc.
In addition, ABAAD, in partnership with UNESCO, produced a short video of 2:49 min, shedding light on the experiences of the young women, part of SAS, who took part in the project and who are professional football players.
