Mayor of London launches £1m toolkit to prevent violence against women and girls
Emily Harle
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has visited a school in the capital to mark the launch of training sessions designed to empower young people to stand against misogynistic behaviour.
The new allyship training, developed in partnership with arts charity Tender, is designed to help young boys to recognise and challenge sexist behaviour, as the country faces what Khan described as an “epidemic of violence against women and girls”.
The toolkit can be accessed online and used by schools, colleges, community groups and faith groups across London.
Khan has invested £1m in the implementation of the resource across the capital over the next three years, as part of a £100m boost for measures to address gender-based violence across London.
Speaking to CYP Now at the launch of the toolkit in Rokeby School, Newham, Khan said: “The idea is to support young people, give them the skills to be educated and empowered to tackle violence against women and girls by addressing their own behaviour and the behaviour of their mates as well.”
Khan added that he had written to more than 500 secondary schools in London to encourage them to use the resource in their classrooms, adding: “We’ll be working closely with schools, to make it as easy as possible for our hardworking teachers to use the toolkit, supplementing the work they do with the team from Tender.”
He said that a collaborative approach should be used to support teachers in delivering the training – including support from the toolkit, other schools and experts such as Tender - in response to reports that some professionals admitted feeling nervous about tackling the topic in their classrooms.
“We’ve got to give schools and teachers the confidence to do this, as we can’t assume every boy learns at home or from other experiences how to be a good ally to girls and women," Khan added.
One teacher from Rokeby School said that the information in the toolkit was current and accurate, which “gives you the confidence when you’re stood at the front of the room delivering.”
She added that the activities in the toolkit were interactive and even the quietest students were actively engaged, saying: “Every student will have to get up and get involved in some way, which is really nice because it means that you’re getting to see everyone’s opinions, and everyone feels involved.”
Khan sat in on a session with young boys at the secondary school yesterday, where teachers and staff from Tender used the new toolkit to carry out an interactive workshop with the students.
Addressing the students after the session, Khan said: “The conversations we’ve had today, gives me confidence that if you were in a situation where yourself or your friends were behaving inappropriately, you’d have a word with yourself and with your friends, because we’ve got to show allyship to girls and women.”
“We’ve got to change the attitudes of our gender. Speak to your friends, your peer groups, talk about it when you go home, and really think about it.”
The toolkit follows various measures from the mayor to tackle the issue of violence against women and girls, including victim and survivor support measures which Khan said will offer support to those from minority communities which are at higher risk of experiencing violence - such as those from the LGBTQ+ community.
Khan said: “We’re not pretending that this toolkit, by itself, is a silver bullet. We think it’s part of a package of measures.”
He also stressed it was important for the government to “step up” and invest far more into tackling the issue of violence against women and girls.
