Love ACTually 4.0

The Love ACTually 4.0 project addressed the growing issues of gender-based violence (GBV) and sexual violence among young people normalized through cultural beliefs about gender and sex, which influenced relationships and undermined equality. Through three training courses and continuous online collaboration and expert involvement, we successfully developed a range of innovative educational tools, including an online game, a board game, an escape game, as well as a series of thought-provoking podcasts and educational videos. These resources were designed to challenge harmful stereotypes and combat the normalization of sexual and gender-based harassment and violence in our societies. We recognized that media and societal norms often perpetuate violent behaviors and reinforce damaging stereotypes. This project aimed to change that narrative by empowering young people, educators, and communities and create tools to stand up against inequality and violence, and to make healthy relationships the rule, not the exception. We also applied in order to address EU-specific challenges, overcoming gaps in existing US-centric tools. The project provided an opportunity to adapt educational efforts to the new realities of online engagement.

Key Objectives: - Create Innovative Learning Tools: Develop engaging, experiential interactive games and resources to educate young people, raise awareness, and empower victims. We aimed to harness the power of gamification, a proven method to engage learners, encourage social sharing, foster behavior change. - Empower young people to be the creators of the social reality in regard to social interactions, and to influence lives of other young people, and to engage them in the conversation that touches lives of their peers, - Equip Youth Workers and NGOs: Provide tools for addressing gender-based violence, cyberviolence, discrimination, and relationship-building, extending their applicability to broader youth work domains. - Promote Inclusion and Equality: Increase inclusion, respect, positive attitudes, and civic engagement among young people while fostering awareness of desired values. - Enhance Digital Literacy: Improve media literacy and safe online relationship-building skills, particularly as online interactions have risen due to the pandemic. - Expand Accessible Tools: Increase the volume and quality of resources available for youth work- - Build Organizational Resilience: Strengthen partner organizations’ capacity to work.