East Lothian young voices speak out and call for change

Today, Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) is launching its East Lothian participation work with a group of young people on the issues of sexual harassment, sexual violence and the normalisation of gender-based violence.

Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre has been delivering sexual violence prevention education to 11–25 year olds in schools and other youth settings in East Lothian for the last three years, as part of Rape Crisis Scotland’s National Prevention Network. We also work with young people on participatory projects to ask their views on issues around sexual violence and what can be done to change it.

The participants created posters and recorded audio clips, highlighting – in their own words – their key concerns, observations and calls to action. The issues they talk about include: rape culture, peer pressure, toxic masculinity, school uniform policies and the impact of social media.

Speaking on behalf of ERCC, Nico Ciubotariu, Chief Operating Officer said:

“With the Everyone’s Invited campaign, there has been a growing awareness of the high prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools. For this year’s 16 Days of Activism, we wanted to work with young people and ask them about what their views, experiences and concerns are, and what changes they would call for.

From our own experience working in schools we have a wealth of anecdotal evidence of the scale of the problem. Despite this, many young people still feel that there is a lack of acknowledgement of, and action on, many of these issues from their peers, parents, policy makers and schools. We want schools to be safe – equally safe for everyone. This 16 Days we’re asking all schools in Edinburgh, East, Mid and West Lothian to commit to taking action and sign up to Equally Safe in Schools.”

Comments from the participants on what they got out of the project, and hoped would come of it:

‘I hope it can create more awareness in the school and within my year groups in general. I think aside from that, it also helped me and the other group members to feel more confident when it comes to calling out gender-based violence.’

‘The group definitely felt like a safe space of sorts for me and others in the group as well where we could talk about issues that affected us and that we cared about without judgement.’

The East Lothian Young Voices participation project is released today, at the end of 16 Days of Activism to eliminate gender based violence. To hear what the young people said and for more information please see our blog.