Building skills of youth leaders to advocate against violence against women by using social media

During the training course, participants were equipped with the basic knowledge on gender, different forms and root causes of VAWG as well as how to prevent VAWG. In addition, the training course provided participants necessary skills to align and mobilize other young people in preventing VAWG through social networks. Under the guidance of trainers, participants developed their own social media action plans in order to raise awareness and mobilize the participation of the youth in preventing VAWG in Viet Nam.

Ms. Vu Phuong Ly, program specialist of UN Women said: "Currently, Viet Nam is now in a period known as the 'golden population structure'. Therefore, in order to promote prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls, there is a need of involving the young generation in developing new social norms of non-violence and respectful relationships. VAWG programs can't be successful without active participation of the youth".

The training course is the first stage of the project "Promoting alternative positive masculinity in the young generation through social media," implemented by UN Women and VVC. The project was initiated on the basis of an urgent need to define social networks as a main way to engage the Vietnamese youth in taking action to end VAWG. The project has been funded by the Danish Innovation Fund, the Embassy of Denmark in Thailand. In the final phase of the project, UN Women and VVC will select maximum 10 social media plans of participants developed in the training to receive technical and financial support from UN Women to spread messages on preventing VAWG through social networks.