EDUCATE TO PREVENT

Changemaker: Lucas Bulgarelli

Country of Implementation: Brazil

When compared to countries in Latin America and in the world, Brazil maintains alarming rates related to

sexual violence against children and adolescents. These rates have been a concern for several national and

local governments over the past few years. Even so, the increase in cases of sexual harassment, generally

committed by relatives or people close to the victims, is a reason for attention. An important mechanism to

combat this violence is found in sex and gender education, a tool that provides necessary information for

children and adolescents to identify and report abuse and harassment. In addition, schools and especially

teachers are often the first to receive and/or perceive different types of sexual and gender violence and

abuse against minors. However, more recently, some Brazilian groups have protested against the teaching

of gender, sexuality, and themes related to sexual education and sexual and reproductive rights in school

spaces. Despite the Brazilian Supreme Court has decided that it is impossible to prohibit or prohibit

debates of gender and sexuality in schools, politicians and leaders have been chasing teachers and

institutions that defend the need to address such issues in the classroom. In order to help to overcome this

situation, the project “Educating to prevent: Educational tools for the realization of rights and combating

sexual and gender violence” seeks to offer Brazilian teachers information about sexual violence and sexual

and reproductive rights, enabling education professionals to be provided with skills and content that allow

them to work on such topics in the classroom safely and based on studies and scientific evidence. The

activity will consist of a course conducted by Instituto Matizes divided into a presentation module and four

content modules offered on an online platform, in addition to a toolkit containing the main information that

will be treated in the course and made available online. Some participants will also be selected to act as

multipliers in their schools and cities. Concurrent with the training activity, a survey with the participating

teachers will also be carried out portraying the course experience and important issues that help to

understand the articulations between gender, sexuality, and education in Brazil.