Children & Youth Voice Programmes
CA4C is a children-led, community project run in partnership with the local non-profit Bizzie Bodies.
The programme is funded by the London Mayor's Cultural Seeds programme and aims to bring together a minimum of 12 children (8-11 yrs) to create original, digital art that will bring Rotherhide's culture to life. Through a partnership of two local non-profits, CA4C will hold 10 digital art workshops (3.5 hours each), focusing on the 70th Anniversary from the docking of the Empire Windrush.
This is an international, research and policy project looking at the potential of restorative justice with "street group violence" such as riots. Through qualitative research analysis, policy development and campaigning, the project aims to explore alternative ways that can genuinely engage group offenders in helping to address the harm caused to group victims. The project is led by Professor Theo Gavrielides, on behalf of RJ4All and is conducted with RJ4All partner the Centre for Restorative Justice at Simon Fraser University.
As part of the project, the following book has been published Gavrielides, T. (2012). Waves of Healing: Using Restorative Justice with Street Group Violence, London: IARS. ISBN 978-1-907641-10-7. The project is unfunded and carried out under the auspices of RJ4All. To get involved or to support it click here
Care 2 Work (C2W) is a multi-year international programme that aims to tackle the barriers faced by young carers from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups (BAME) when accessing employment, education and training.
The project is supported by Erasmus+ (Key Action 2), and is delivered in partnership with three European Partners namely Anziani e Non Solo (Italy), Linnaeus University (Sweden) and the Family and Children Care Centre (Greece). The IARS International Institute is the coordinator for the programme under the leadership of its Founder and Director Dr. Theo Gavrielides. To find out more click here
I coordinate a number of youth programmes at the RJ4All International Institute that I direct including the youth-led FRED campaign. To find out more click here
In 2012, The Anne Frank Trust in partnership with IARS received a grant from the Big Lottery to carry out a 5 year project under the Realising Ambition programme.
In this framework, IARS role in the partnership is to design and carry out a strong, independent, evidence based evaluation on Anne Frank Trust schools and Ambassadors programme, as well as to provide on – going advice and support to Anne Frank Trust throughout the duration of the programme. Building upon a strong partnership IARS is aiming to support Anne Frank Trust to understand and learn from its own practices but also allow for the development of strategies for further improvement. Dr. Gavrielides is the coordinator of this programme on behalf of IARS. To find out more click here
The 99% Campaign is a national youth-led initiative and digital participation programme aiming to make UK more inclusive, fair and responsive to young people’s views, contribution. It achieves its mission by giving voice to the most marginalised young people and dispelling negative stereotypes.
Supported by IARS and under the leadership of Dr. Gavrielides the campaign aims are:
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“Disadvantage thinking” about young people is addressed and positive stories are promoted.
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Discrimination, negative perceptions and stereotypes about young people are tackled within society, political institutions and service providers.
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New youth opportunities are created while current opportunities are highlighted and enhanced. To find out more click here
This project was run Prof. Theo Gavrielides on behalf of IARS. As part of their commitment to reduce violence, help heal communities and provide services that stop people from committing further offences, the Greater Manchester Probation Trust (GMPT) wished to develop a strategy for the use of restorative justice with serious youth violence, street group violence (e.g. riots) and gang related crime.
The project was run to support this initiative by providing independent and evidence-based advice that allowed GMPT to develop a solid framework for their future policy and practice in this area. The project was founded upon evidence from probation staff as well as "live case studies" that are analysed, evaluated and used for a regional restorative justice strategy. To find out more click here
This was an international project that was funded by the EU (2009-11) and was carried out as part of the "Mediation and restorative justice in prison settings" (MEREPS) project, focusing on the role of restorative justice in prison settings and post sentencing.
Dr. Gavrielides led the UK project on behalf of IARS, focusing on the imprisonment of young people. The findings were included in the book "Restorative Justice & the Secure Estate: Alternatives for Young People in custody" which was launched on 1 December 2011 in London at a national conference. The UK was one of the MEREPS country partners. Our research aimed to complement the evaluation and pilots that took place in Germany and the parallel research that was undertaken in Hungary so as to allow cross learning and information exchange. To find out more click here.
This was a youth-led investigation into young people's reporting preferences when faced with intimidating behaviour on their bus journeys home from school.
This piece of youth led research was a follow up to research carried out by the Youth Advisory Board (YAB) to the London Serious Youth Violence Board into the causes of youth violence between the hours of 3pm and 6pm on buses and at transport hubs. The research was undertaken in 2010 / 2011. More information can be found here
Building Bridges Project [2006-2008]
Since 2009, Dr. Gavrielides has been coordinating a pan European youth led research and policy programme aiming to provide voice to young people accross Europe. Previously funded under the Youth in Action and now under Erasmus plus, the programme aims to inspire feelings of solidarity and citizenship among young people across Europe, and involve them in future policy-making decisions. It also aims raise awareness of European youth issues, among the wider community, and encourage higher levels of personal development among young people.
The two key aims of the IARS Erasmus + programme are;
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To raise stakeholder awareness of European policy agendas in youth, the EU Youth Strategy and other sector specific policy agendas.
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To boost stakeholder participation in the field of education, training and youth.
The programmes activities directly link with IARS's history. In 2001, young people from accross Europe and under the direction of Dr. Theo Gavrielides, came together to set up an informal European network focusing on developing and delivering bottom-up youth policy that represents the views and interests of young people in their diversity at a European level.
Offenders no More in Offender Rehabilitation [2014-2015]
Recently, the foundations of rehabilitation theory and thus practice have been shaken. In fact, rehabilitation is now seen by many researchers, policy makers and practitioners as a threat to offenders' rights and humanitarian principles. Some have even argued that rehabilitation practices are harmful to offenders' chances of going straight. Alongside this questioning, the entire paradigm on which our modern criminal justice systems are based has also been questioned. Alternative visions of justice have been moved out of the shadows in the hope that more effective processes are developed for safer and more just societies. One of these visions is encapsulated in restorative justice, which is based on the foundation of promoting human goods in the pursuit of restoration of harm and the correction of deviant behaviour (i.e. approach goals as well as avoidance goals).
A new theory of offender rehabilitation without the offender is thus proposed through restorative justice practice. This is yet to be articulated in theory and research. This ground-breaking collected edition aims to respond to this call by bringing together thinking from international experts in restorative justice, criminology, education, law, human rights, psychology, legal theory and practice. The book is edited by Dr. Theo Gavrielides and will be published in 2015 by NOVA Publishing. To read more click here.
In 2009, with funding from the Big Lottery Fund, IARS launched London Youth Now, a policy, awareness raising and training project. It seeks to ensure that young people and organisations working with them can promote community cohesion by involving young people from a diverse range of backgrounds in policy, service design and service delivery.
Coordinated by Dr. Gavrielides, the project offers volunteering opportunities to disadvantaged young Londoners who are likely to be excluded from decision making processes and discussions around how policies and services for young people are implemented.
The project enables young people to have their voices heard and to develop valuable attributes such as research skills, the ability to work in a team and an improved sense of confidence. The project is also important for enabling local organisations to better understand how to engage young people in the effective development of their services and to take on board their views and experiences in their delivery of services. Such services therefore are able to make the greatest impact possible since they reflect the needs of their young service users. Click here for more information.
Under the direction of Dr. Gavrielides, this programme provided opportunities for young people, youth-led organisations, infrastructure organisations and representatives from other sectors and government to work together at a strategic level on the following issues:
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Providing capacity building information around the 2012 Olympics games for young people.
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Ensuring that youth-led organisations received adequate support from relevant infrastructure organisations and authorities, especially around the 2012 Olympics.
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Promoting networking between youth-led organisations, with particular emphasis around the 2012 Olympics.
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Providing knowledge and expertise on the youth-led sector to infrastructure organisations, policy makers and other sectors.
In 2006, Dr. Theo Gavrielides fundraised resources to run the Building Bridges Project for Race on the Agenda (ROTA).
The Building Bridges Project was set up to show how young people can be involved in designing, forming and delivering policy. It was also introduced as a pilot whereby young people (16-25) from various racial, cultural and economic backgrounds would be given the chance to interact and learn from each other and through human rights education find out what unites them rather than what divides them in a society where materialism, lack of respect for each other’s dignity and rights, exclusion, fear and isolation thrive.
Dr Gavrielides trained and supported a group of young people from mixed backgrounds to run a youth-led research and policy project to:
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increase their awareness of human rights and ethical values with a view to address their biases and build bridges between them;
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collect evidence relating to the knife and gun culture that is rooted in the capital with a view to affect policymaking.
The project resulted in the publication BUILDING BRIDGES PROJECT Empowering young people through human rights values: Fighting the knife culture
Funded by Young Roots of Heritage Lottery Fund, the project sought to empower young women (aged 16+) to explore and preserve the hidden history of the changing role of Muslim women’s participation in sporting events in the UK since 1948 to the present day. Their findings were recorded in a film which you can view for free here The funds were raised by Theo Gavrielides on behalf of IARS. He also project managed it.
The Abused no More (AnM) project will help to bridge this gap by focusing on increasing legal capacity in the areas of gender-based discrimination, exclusion and abuse against some of the most marginalised youth groups and in particular those who tend to be disadvantaged due to their gender and cultural differences (e.g. immigrants, refugees, descendants from immigrant families) and other social obstacles e.g. sexual orientation and ethnicity.
Inspired and motivated by the priorities of the EU Youth Strategy, the AnM project will bring together young people and professionals to establish a cross-sector, transnational Strategic Partnership in order to design and implement innovative practices and come up with a set of reference documents (online & in print) that will: (a) empower marginalised youth (b) increase the capacity of service providers, notably in the areas of integration, equity and inclusion, gender-based abuse and discrimination.
Dr. Gavrielides is the coordinator of this programme on behalf of IARS. To find out more click here