On November 26th, teachers, students and non-teaching staff of the Nursing School of Coimbra (ESEnfC), as well as some special guests, wanted to say no to violence, namely violence against women.
This took place at the forum “Building Dating Relationships: Say no to violence”, that the ESEnfC organised within the scope of the Project (O)Usar & Ser Laço Branco. This initiative was considered of extreme importance by the President of the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality.
Dra. Elza Pais states that «we should congratulate the ESEnfC for this initiative», which has «all the support» from the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality «in order for the message to reach more young people».
«A lot is being done to protect the victims, but prevention is necessary among young people» to prevent «many women [from continuing] from dying inside their intimate relationships», pointed out Dra. Elza Pais.
As coordinator of the Project, professor Maria Neto reminded everyone the isolation, suffering, disappointment and often the lack of will to live experienced by women victims of oppression.
As this professor said, dating relationships are a privileged space of affectivity, but also a place where unique forms of violence may take place.
The President of the Directing Board of the ESEnfC, professor Maria da Conceição Bento, reminded the audience that one in fours relationships are marked by some kind of violence and that we are far away from reaching the essential goal of equality between men and women. It is in this asymmetry of power between genders that violence emerges. And, speaking to the students, the president stated that this is an area where nurses may have an «active intervention».
The project (O)Usar & Ser Laço Branco is developed by the ESEnfC in partnership with some non-governmental organisations and is aimed at reducing violence, starting with the type of violence inflicted on women during the dating period, promoting gender equality and opportunities.
The path suggested to the youngsters who are part of this project includes the strategy of peer education, a model in which youngsters train other youngsters.
The project, always supervised by teachers, contemplates the training of volunteers from both sexes (students of the Nursing degree course), who will promote, together with their colleagues, internal information campaigns at the ESEnfC and, afterwards, with youths and teenagers from secondary education schools. They will promote and develop the training of other peer educators of these educational contexts.
Among other personalities, the deputies of the Assembly of the Republic Dra. Teresa Portugal and Dr. João Oliveira participated in this forum as commentators of the round-table on “Building Meaningful Relationships”.
