August 26th to 28th six girl or boy group leaders from the Åland Islands and ten from Latvia all partcipated in an educational session in Riga, led by Finnish trainer Mia Hanström. The education was organized within the project Challenging Gender Roles for Prevention of Trafficking as a first step to teach leaders how to extend the network of leaders through education for beginners.The ”training of trainers” is important to ensure the sustainability of girl and boy group activities, especially in Latvia.
Within the project a current challenge is to ensure financing for group activities in both countries. The Latvian partner Marta has been partly successful in this aspect and group activities will continue after the end of the project. On Åland, however, it remains uncertain if all groups can be sustained.
The girl and boy group method is a Nordic model of direct work with young people aiming at strenghtening individuals, enhancing the participants’ possibilities to become active citizens and at the same time questioning prevailing gender stereotypes in order to achieve greater gender equality and a non-discriminatory setting for individual development.
