Starting from Autumn 2017, AEGEE / European Students’ Forum has been raising awareness and tackling the problem of sexual harassment and consent inside our organisation.

In 2019, and thanks to the support of the European Youth Foundation (Council of Europe), AEGEE is launching a project titled S.M.A.S.H.: Structural Measures Against Sexual Harassment. During this project, AEGEE will be able to further increase its expertise and enlarge the pool of members who are trained to prevent, detect and react to cases of sexual harassment (named Safe Persons).

The aim of SMASH is to create a sustainable system to prevent and tackle the problem of sexual harassment in (youth) organisations, as well as other events and activities involving youth, using AEGEE as a pilot but ensuring the replicability, scalability and dissemination of our activities.

In order to do so, we will train youth workers on how to prevent, detect and react to sexual harassment in their local organisations and communities, becoming Safe Persons and creating a network of Safe Persons all over Europe.

Besides, educational guidelines for youth workers on how to become Safe Person and how to implement a system that enables tackling sexual harassment in their local organisations will be produced throughout the project, as well as a trainers’ toolkbox to ensure the multiplier effect.

These methods will be tested in a series of events in different parts of Europe, gathering from 50 to 1000 young people, during the Spring and Summer 2019. Thanks to the input from these events, as well as the one from an expert on sexual harassment, the guidelines will be adapted and finalised to be disseminated among AEGEE’s network and other youth organisations in a closing event in Brussels in winter 2019.  

To sum up, the main events of the workplan will be:

  • Training for youth workers in Tbilisi, Georgia, 9-14 April
  • Training for youth workers in Helsinki, Finland, June 
  • Training for trainers in Alicante, Spain, 2-8 October 
  • Closing event, Brussels, December 2019

If you are interested in the project, and in particular in piloting the Safe Person method in your organisation, feel free to contact us at safe.person@aegee.eu!