Advocacy in Croatia through REVIS project

In the last phase of the REVIS project - Responding to violence against children in schools and adjacent settings, students had the opportunity to share their experiences in various ways about how it was for them to participate in the workshops, what they learned, whether any of their attitudes have changed, whether they think their campaigns had the impact initially envisioned and what they would like to tell decision makers based on their experience.

The most important thing we can point out is that the students say peer violence should not be tolerated, either in schools or outside them. They want decision-makers to commit to creating a safer environment for all students. It includes strengthening preventive programs and student education, as well as an adequate response to undesirable behaviors.

The students emphasize the importance of preventive workshops like the ones they had in the REVIS project. Such workshops play a key role in empowering students and developing their skills to prevent and respond to violence. Through such workshops, students learned how to recognize and react to peer violence, but also how to help victims.

Through the REVIS project, students also had the opportunity to design their campaign against peer violence. It was extremely important to them because they had the opportunity to express their opinions and contribute to the community in a way that was important to them. The campaigns they designed were creative and engaging and focused on positive change and community empowerment.

The students of the Technical School Čakovec perfectly summarized the messages they want to send to adults through the latest videos on their YouTube channel. They spoke to adults about what they think should be different, and how they should react, but also included adults from their environment involved in their education and the local community.

You can watch their key message video at this link.

In conclusion, the students tell us that the cooperation of all branches of education and the local community is crucial. It is important to involve students in decisions and implement as many preventive programs as possible, which will not be just dry lectures. But to design programs where students will be able to actively participate, release their creativity, and mutually influence each other.

„Such preventive programs not only affect us now, but also after, when and if we become parents, to end this generational trauma. Before, there were different times and now things are changing very quickly, people are discovering themselves. It is important that we are the first to learn how to accept others so that we can influence our environment, and later on our children.“ - student included in the project