As the GAF takes on the mission of responding to problem that generate social exclusion, by actively contributing toward building a more just, equitable, responsible and cooperative social reality, it kept structuring its intervention in such a way as to provide alternatives to the constant challenges that have emerged. While these services have been co-funded by concluding atypical cooperation agreements and protocols with the District Social Security Center, they have been supplemented with different projects both under domestic programs and funding lines and under EU funding.
Doequ@l
Duration: December 2016 to February 2019
The Doequ@l project emerges as part of the Operational Social Inclusion and Employment Program (known as its Portuguese acronym POISE), as coordinated by the Comissão para a Cidadania e Igualdade de Género (Citizenship and Gender Equality Commission). The project seeks to develop initiatives in the spheres of action proposed as part of the following National Plans: the 5th National Plan for Gender Equality, Citizenship and Non-discrimination (PNI); the 5th National Plan for Preventing and Fighting Domestic and Gender Violence (PNPCVDG) and the 3rd National Plano for Preventing and Fighting Human Trafficking (PNPCTSH).
[Read on]Adições (Additions) Street Team
Duration: October 2013 to the present
Funded by the SICAD, the project adopts an intervention of reaching out to the individual, based on the philosophy of Reducing Risk and Minimizing Damage, associated with the use of legal and illegal psycho-active substances (PAS) and with sexual risk behaviors. It uses a methodology for researching action, hinged on a basis for continuous theoretical analysis of its practices/services and of the relationship between responses and the individual.
[Read on]
Duration: October 2013 to the present
The CAPS HIV/AIDS has developed the Cotton Candy Project, which aims to educate on affections and sexuality in pre-school, involving the main educational agents (parents and teachers) and children ages 4 and 5 attending kindergarten.
[Read on]
CLDS 3G - Viana Consigo (Viana With You)
What is it?
The purpose of the 3rd-Generation Local Social Development Contracts (CLDS-3G) is to foster the social inclusion of citizens, through initiatives to be carried out in partnership, in order to fight persistent poverty and social exclusion.
The CLDS-3G, as a major instrument for outreach intervention, are now strengthened at their base of action, by realigning their basic goals, while enhancing the proactivity of every agent in the quest for solutions to the different problems citizens face, as well as fostering the areas’ sustainable and inclusive growth.
The GAF, as a benchmark organization in terms of social intervention, is the local partnership coordinator for the geographical area located north of the Lima River, in the municipality of Viana do Castelo.
Goals
Specific goals
• Promote citizens’ social inclusion, in a multisectoral and integrated manner, through initiatives to be carried out in partnership, enabling it to contribute toward increased employability;
• Bring about measures that foster the active inclusion of the handicapped and the disabled, as well as the empowerment of institutions;
• Foster the creation of circuits for the production, dissemination and marketing of local and/or regional products, in order to promote the area and employability;
• Promote the development of instruments that empower social and economic institutions, by fostering the implementation of shared services that enabling greater rationality of resources and management efficiency;
• Foster the development of facilitating instruments geared to people’s mobility and access to local utility services, to reduce isolation and social exclusion.
Intervention
The CLDS-3G Viana Consigo (Viana With You) project develops its activities around three major points of intervention, to wit:
1 - Employment, training and qualification;
2 - Family and parental intervention, to prevent child poverty;
3 - Empowering the community and institutions.
Target Group
The outlook for CLDS-3G Viana Consigo calls for intervention in an overall, systemic and contextual dimension: individual, family and community. Indeed, the project’s target population comprises the following:
• The unemployed and local employers;
• Young people in transition to active life or at risk of dropping out of school;
• Families;
• Civil society, institutions, associations, cooperatives, volunteer organizations and other non-profit organizations.
Team
• 1 Technical Coordinator
• 1 Management Officer
• 2 Psychologists
• 1 Socio-cultural Animator
“CLDS+ Empreender+ (Endeavor+)”
What is it?
The purpose of the Local Social Development Contracts CLDS+ Program is to foster the social inclusion of citizens, in a multisectoral and integrated manner, through initiatives to be carried out in partnership, in order to fight unemployment, persistent poverty and social exclusion. This program, which considers a set of transversely, inclusively and sustainably integrated actions, is operated under the Empreender+ (Endeavor+) project.
The Family Assistance Office (GAF), is a benchmark organization in the municipality in terms of social intervention, is the Local Partnership Coordination Organization (ECLP) under the Local Social Development Contracts Program (CLDS+) for the municipality of Viana do Castelo.
The purposes of the program are concertedly and systemically entwined for a common goal: superior local development, by empowering the individual and the community comprising the population of Viana do Castelo.
Goals
• Contribute toward increasing employability, through greater information on and awareness-raising to existing resources in the community, while fighting high levels of unemployment;
• Achieve a coordinated fight against extreme poverty, especially in the elderly and in children;
• Prevent instances of social exclusion, namely associated with vulnerable households comprising children, elderly and disabled persons, by turning to active measures for including these people into society;
• Promote a culture of intergenerational communication, in order to (re)build links and establish dynamics in the daily lives of the local populace marked by aging.
Intervention
The CLDS+ program integrates 3 points of intervention encompassing a set of activities:
• Employment, training and qualification (including fostering the inclusion of disabled/handicapped persons);
• Family and Parental Intervention, to prevent child poverty;
• Empowering the Community and Institutions.
Recipients
CLDS+ calls for intervention in an overall systemic and contextual (individual, family and community) dimension. Indeed, the project’s target population comprises the following:
• Unemployed people, local employers, youth population – basic, secondary (and higher) education;
• Multi-challenged and socially vulnerable families, children (from grades 1 to 9) and the elderly;
• Civil society, institutions, associations (cooperatives, volunteer organizations, non-profit associations).
This program, which comprises a social policy instrument centered on current social problems, seeks to be part of a movement for change and development, by bringing about measures compatible with the points of intervention, as well as with mandatory initiatives considered under the decree governing it (Decree no. 135-C/2013, dated March 28th).
Team
• 1 Technical coordinator
• 1 Management Officer
• 2 Psychologists
• 1 Socio-cultural Animator
Proequ@l
What is it?
The district-based Proequ@l project seeks to expand/decentralize the NAVVD’s intervention, while centering on the Prevention of Domestic Violence (DV) and on Fostering Gender Equality (GI).
This project has served to meet prevention needs (primary, secondary and tertiary), by disseminating non-stereotyped values, reversing paths of exclusion and reproducing discourses that foster new femininities and masculinities.
The goals of Proequ@l include disseminating information on domestic violence, gender violence and vicarious violence; draw the populace to a culture of equality, by conciliating professional, family and personal life; foster a culture generating new masculinities and femininities, in order to do away with stereotyped gender patterns; stimulate civil society to a greater involvement and active participation in social intolerance relative to DV.
The emphasis on raising awareness, victim empowerment and training as well as service decentralization are innovative factors of proequ@l, which favor the dissemination of community best practices.
Intervention
Proequ@l develops the following initiatives:
• Conducting awareness-raising/information initiatives geared to different target audiences, by promoting citizenship and education on equality (through changes of attitudes in relation to gender roles and to conciliation between f/p/p life)
• Development of informative materials;
• Expansion/decentralization of assistance to DV victims, while aiming to create a district intervention network;
• Enhancing (individual/group) psychological intervention for direct and vicarious DV victims, by fostering their psychosocial development, decreased abuse and preventing re-victimization;
• Empowering women to deal with situations of vulnerability/inequality, by fostering personal, social and occupational skills that facilitate (re)integration.
Recipients
To pursue the outlined initiatives, the project is geared to different target populations: civil society, young people, a strategic public contacting/intervening with direct and indirect victims of domestic violence.
XYX Project
What is it?
The XYX project is an integrating across-the-board project that, given its scientific and even operational contributions, can be seen as an important mechanism for achieving the goals of equality and gender violence prevention.
While assuming gender mainstreaming as a central dimension of the XYX project, its intervention pursues a cross-cutting and multidisciplinary component, capable of bringing out new gender discourses and “echoes.” It emphasizes the promotion of cross-cutting from the perspective of gender and non-discrimination, by disseminating new gender discourses (new femininities and masculinities) fostering a social reality based on equal citizenship from the public and private sphere. This way, it contributes toward a more participative, fairer, more equitable society without violence.
For such a purpose, the project essentially emphasizes on the innovation factor, which is embodied in both the intervention methodologies and the project’s recipients.
Intervention
For such a purpose, the project essentially emphasizes on the innovation factor, which is embodied in both the intervention methodologies and the project’s recipients.
• Conduct a district-wide information dissemination campaign (topics: gender violence, gender equality; dating violence);
• Streamline peer educator youth scholarships based on the peer education methodology and the Theater of the Oppressed;
• Prepare and disseminate a manual for streamlining peer educator youth scholarships;
• Streamline a meeting: theme-based seminar and workshop(s) of professionals involved in intervention and empowerment of victims for sharing best intervention practices.
Recipients
To pursue the outlined initiatives, the project is geared to different target populations: civil society, young university student population, professionals contacting/intervening with direct and indirect victims of domestic violence.
The “Estrada com Horizontes” (Road with Horizons) Street Team
What is it?
This is an outreach structure making it possible to develop work involving support, triage and referral, throughout the district, with (occasional or problem) psychoactive substance users, and/or families, and with sex workers on the streets. From the standpoint of reducing risks and minimizing damage, its intervention is particularly conducted in public spaces and is based on services involving social, psychological and legal assistance, health care and education, distribution of material for aseptic use, among others.
Goals
Prevent, reduce risks and minimize damage from a problem use of psychoactive substances.
Specific goals
• Improve the quality of the basic conditions of life;
• Promote health, by increasingly adopting safe behaviors;
• Facilitate access to information/training on the safest drug uses;
• Promote the reduction of risk behaviors;
• Lessen the damage caused by drug use and perceived by the families of drug users;
• Improve the quality of socio-affective relations between drug users and their informal support network;
• Enhance user self-esteem;
• Promote concerted action between drug users and the socio-health-care network;
• Provide for referral and the efficient use of resources/formal support organizations.
Intervention
Given the outlined goals and bearing in mind the reduction of risks and minimizing of damage, the "Estrada com Horizontes" (Road with Horizons) Street Team provides a set of services, encompassed within different modes of intervention:
• Biopsychosocial support
• Family intervention (upon request and in agreement with the individual);
• Distribution of foodstuffs and clothing;
• Distribution of aseptic consumption material;
• Low-Threshold Methadone Program;
• Referral to the network’s socio-health-care structures.
The patient monitoring process also comprises three stages: reception, needs assessment and intervention.
Reception
• Analysis and assessment of requests;
Assessing Needs
• Assessment centered on physical condition;
• Assessment centered on social and environmental factors;
• Assessing/negotiating a commitment to change;
Intervention
• Development of a socio-educational project;
• Intervention geared toward obtaining or enhancing the ability to obtain goods and resources;
• Intervention focused on using community resources;
• Psychological counseling;
• Skills training;
• Education and awareness-raising activities;
• Distribution of aseptic consumption material and information material;
• Administering methadone and other therapies;
• Monitoring contact;
• Intervention integrated with other Institutions or Professionals.
Team
• 1 Coordinator
• 1 Senior Social Service Officer
• 1 Psychologist
• 3 Nurses
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."