To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This Better Story was collected by Marloes van Engen

Challenges faced by transgender people during the pandemic

COVID-19 had several consequences for transgender people around the world. There are several studies that have investigated the effects of covid on transgender people. One such study is the TransCareCovid-19 study. This is a study in which 7,000 transgender people from all over the world participated. Almost half of participants who are already in treatment reported that access to care has become more limited. Those registered as male at birth and those with low incomes had an even higher risk of limitations in transgender care.

According to Transvision’s website, There were 355 participants from Flanders and the Netherlands in this study. It is striking that 1 in 3 participants has a disability. Access to hormones was restricted in 7 out of 100 participants. Although many appointments with psychologists were cancelled, this quickly resumed in the form of phone conversations or video calls, according to half of the participants. A lot of anxiety and stress has been reported, with the hope that waiting lists for transgender care will continue to grow.

An initiative that provides support to transgender individuals

During Covid-19 lockdowns many operations of transgenders were cancelled. Transvision offered all kinds of help, such as help via a chatline, telephone, and by providing information, such as information how to bind breasts safely for trans men that have not been able to operate their breasts. The project aspires to an inclusive society in which every transgender person has access to the right care, at the right time, in the right place, by a care provider with the right expertise.

Find out more about the initiative

Photo by Freepik

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This Better Story was collected by Carolina Wienand-Sangare

The project was launched on short notice in response to the pandemic as part of the Federal Funding Program “Together against violence against women,” initiated by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth (BMFSFJ). The Government responded promptly to the challenges presented by the Corona pandemic, ensuring improved accessibility and support for abused women and their children. The application deadline concluded on March 31, 2022.

Enhancing support for women in difficult situations

The “Help System 2.0” project, a recipient of the funding, is dedicated to supporting women’s shelters and specialized counseling centers in effectively navigating the digital challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its main focus lies in enhancing technical capabilities by providing staff with essential digital training. Moreover, the project extends its support by offering professional language mediation services to counsel women and girls affected by violence. As highlighted on the website, the pandemic exposed a critical issue: numerous women’s shelters and counseling centers faced a severe lack of basic technical resources like computers, company mobile phones, and reliable. This deficiency created significant obstacles, hindering their ability to render optimal assistance to those seeking help.

By investing in such vital initiatives, the project ensures that support services remain robust and readily available even during these challenging times. It empowers women and girls facing violence, offering them the necessary assistance and resources to help them through their difficult situations.

Find out more about the initiative

Photo by pch.vector from Freepik

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This Better Story was collected by Suzanne de Cheveigné

Raising awareness about gender identity

Today, transgender as a gender identity remains unfamiliar to the public, leaving trans individuals vulnerable to daily transphobic prejudice. These biases often hinder or obstruct crucial transition procedures, such as legal status changes and medical treatments, which are vital for people’s well-being. In response, Transat’s works towards raising public awareness about transgender challenges, offering support to the most vulnerable, and actively defending their rights.

Advocating for change

Transat, a Marseille-based organization, comprises transgender individuals dedicated to mutual support and militant advocacy. Alongside addressing their unique health concerns, Transat helps young people rejected by their families. During the lockdown, the challenges faced by trans individuals intensified, including limited access to healthcare, hormones, and family conflicts. Despite these difficulties, Transat helped many violence victims, including young individuals displaced from their homes. Transat successfully established a robust support network of dedicated members.

Find out more about the initiative

Photo by gpointstudio from freepik

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This Better Story was collected by Raili Marling

This ambitious project, initiated by the Estonian Association of Pensioners’ Associations, aims to empower elderly individuals by providing them with training modules to enhance their digital literacy skills. By challenging the commonly held belief that age is a barrier to learning and personal development, this initiative seeks to bridge the digital divide among the elderly population.

Empowering the Elderly through digital literacy

Recognizing the importance of addressing the specific needs of vulnerable elderly people across Estonia, the project takes an intersectional approach that considers the influence of both age and socio-economic status. By tailoring the training modules to cater to these individuals, the project aims to create equal opportunities for all elderly citizens to benefit from the digital world.

Addressing seniors’ challenges

Each training programme offered by the project has a duration of 20 academic hours, providing a comprehensive and immersive learning experience. The Estonian partners involved in the development of these programs have contributed their expertise to create a diverse range of training modules that cater to the specific needs and interests of elderly individuals. Among these modules:

• Addressing seniors’ challenges in the silver economy
• Building digital skills
• Social activity in old age
• Memory training
• Physical exercises

Find out more about the initiative

Photo from Freepik

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This Better Story was collected by Monica Stroe.

In Romania, a group of feminist NGOs reunites under the movement #MultumescPentruFlori (#ThankYoufortheFlowers).

A series of collective actions for International Women’s Day 2021

This initiative consists in a series of collective actions that are mostly physical but are spread and organized digitally. The actions happened on International Women’s Day 2021, including: a protest directed against the Government’s failure to address women’s issues such as violence, poverty, lack of access to health services, personal safety; public debates about sexual violence, domestic violence and access to justice, and set of demands of regulatory laws, including electronic monitoring of perpetrators. The series of actions are intended as an advocacy and awareness campaign about the unequal burden of the pandemic on women.

A lack of visibility limits the impacts

The main barriers to the network’s actions, including this one, are the moderate participation and the lack of media visibility of the events, as well as the territorial coverage of the offline events (public protests), restricted mainly to the two largest cities.

Image by #MultumescPentruFlori movement

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This Better Story was collected by Marita Zitmane

Medical staff has been working long hours in difficult conditions for almost a year. Many doctors are burnt out or close to a burnout, as they are both physically and mentally depleted.

The aim of this initiative is to support medical staff in Latvia during the Covid-19 crisis. To do so, donations are collected, and the money is used to provide three days of free rest for burnt out doctors in some of the most beautiful places in Latvia.

The target audience is medical staff, mostly composed of women. Thus, this initiative addresses the gender care gap, providing means to sustain physical and mental health by allowing them to take a three-day break.

The campaign has a positive effect not only on busy medical staff, but also on the tourism industry, which has been hit hard by the restrictions imposed during the pandemic.

So far, €23,100 have been donated. Representatives of the hospitality industry are also invited to take part in the campaign, offering supportive accommodation conditions to medical staff.

The main promoter of this initiative is Hospiss LV, a non-governmental organisation aiming to emphasise the importance of palliative care services so that patients can spend the last days in pleasant conditions, under the supervision of professional staff.

Find out more about the initiative

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This Better Story was collected by: Claire Stovell, Charoula Tzanakou, Alexis Still, Anne Laure Humbert. 

A group of black fathers in London have started their own podcast to challenge stereotypes and share their experiences of fatherhood. 

How it all started 

Marvyn, a black British father decided to send on Father’s Day 2018 a WhatsApp message to friends who are fathers saying thank you for their great work in raising the next generation. Every man replied quickly, and the group started discussing what it means to be a black dad in the UK today. The conversation being so rich and honest, they wanted to share them with as many people as possible and so they created a podcast. 

Calling themselves “Dope Black Dads”, they speak about the added pressures of being a black male parent: “the parenting part is the same, but what you’re trying to teach your child is much more layered. You’re trying to show them that having a different skin tone and hair might mean they are judged differently”.   

Launched in October 2018, the podcast has 60 regular contributors from around the globe. Episodes cover varied topics and some have explicitly referred to issues linked to the pandemic, for example, Get fit with Dope Black Dads; The mental load of masculinity and male parenting; Are you sending your kids back to school?; Back to school post covid. 

The impact of the podcast 

Dope Black Dads, a digital safe space for fathers who wish to discuss masculinity and their experiences of being a black parent in the modern world, is a success among women too. “We have had a fantastic response to the podcast from real people. Women are our biggest audience – there is a 60/40 split – and we have a global audience from different cultures.” 

The hopes are that this podcast will be a step in the right direction and might stop black dads from feeling alone. The aim is to celebrate, heal, inspire, and educate black fathers for better outcomes for black families. 

Learn more 

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The initiatives currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This societal initiative has been collected by Maresa Berliri

The “Not Alone” Programme is an integrated programme implemented by Save the Children in response to the COVID-19 pandemic which aims to tackle educational poverty, the divide in access to distance learning of schools, and the difficulties of fragile families in accessing basic necessities. 

It provides support (material, psychological, social, educational, etc.) to children and young people living in vulnerable families and in situations of hardship (including, therefore, for example, unaccompanied foreign minors) and targets children and young people, vulnerable families, new mothers and unaccompanied foreign minors. 

Educational poverty during a health crisis 

In Italy, educational poverty deprives millions of children and adolescents of opportunities. Children and young people who, because of difficult economic conditions, do not have the same opportunities as their economically stable peers to learn, experiment, develop and allow their abilities, talents and aspirations to flourish freely. 

Before the pandemic, educational poverty was estimated to affect 1.2 million children and youth. In 2020, 335,000 new families became poor. According to ISTAT data from March 2021 in Italy, there are 1,346,000 minors living in poverty, equal to as many as 13.4% of children and youth, an increase of about 200,000 minors compared to the 2019 data, to which must be added those in relative poverty – there were about two million in 2019. In addition to the risks of poverty, there are the consequences from the educational point of view, the closure of schools and the difficulties children and young people have in accessing education. 

Three other categories at risk are unaccompanied foreign minors, whose path to inclusion risks being abruptly interrupted, children whose forced stay at home increases the danger of domestic violence against their mothers and the children and adolescents directly affected by the disease as well as their parents. The program addresses these four categories of people at risks.  

A myriad of activities  

The main activities carried out under the programme include:  

– delivered tablets, connections and kits with games and educational materials to children from disadvantaged backgrounds;
– activated Punti Luce educational centers throughout Italy to provide online extracurricular educational activities and support;
– supported the school, together with the Fuoriclasse teachers’ movement (involving 170 schools, in its commitment to inclusive and quality distance learning, building an accessible and free online training path for all;
– encouraged students to meet online or by phone, through calls, Facebook groups, Whatsapp and other dedicated platforms to prevent learning loss. In these “virtual” meetings, children and adolescents met for creative activities, music, theater and drawing workshops and much more;
– distributed food kits to families
– provided support to new and expectant mothers (Fiocchi in ospedale and Per mano projects), helping them with the necessities for newborns, such as diapers, milk and baby food, and giving them advice and support in such a delicate phase;
– provided guidelines to domestic violence support services operators in the field so that they can detect dangerous situations for women and children as soon as possible and facilitate their escape;
– activated, thanks to the network of volunteer lawyers, an online legal support desk and guaranteed the operation of the help-line dedicated to foreign minors that responds daily in 6 languages;
– guaranteed, through the Civico Zero network, Italian language courses for unaccompanied foreign minors and distributed educational materials and kits to 45 communities hosting unaccompanied foreign minors;
– provided an initial psychological support service on how to make the best use of time with the children and deal with their anxieties and fears, including the dissemination of videos through social channels;
– involved the Save the Children Youth Movement “Sottosopra” to animate the Change the future platform and the UndeRadio webradio on issues related to the pandemic;
– activated in June 2020 the Future Spaces, equipped areas in the suburbs of our cities intended for play, meeting and educational paths. 

A long-lasting impact

The “Not Alone” programme was carried out by Save the Children in collaboration with 41 other mainly civil society organisations in various Italian cities also thanks to funds raised by citizens, businesses and foundations. This was a very multifaceted programme, involving many organizations, with a great deal of staff effort and resource deployment. 

Since the end of March 2020, it has involved some 75,000 people; 20,000 people have already been involved during the first two weeks. Starting from June 2020, Save the children launched the national campaign “Rewrite the Future”, a 15-month intervention program that aims to reach 100,000 girls, boys and adolescents on the national territory and their families, and that includes a series of initiatives focused on the need to ensure the rights and meet the needs and requirements of minors in the post-Covid period.  

Save the Children Italy is a Non-Governmental Organization with activities and projects aimed at both boys and girls in the so-called developing countries and those living on Italian territory. 

Find out more about the initiative 

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The initiatives currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This societal initiative has been collected by: Vanda Maufras Cernohorska.

Nora Fridrichová, a journalist and philanthropist, had been focusing on supporting single parents for approximately two years prior to the pandemic. She intensified her efforts in 2020, started to collaborate more with businesses and created two initiatives to support single-parent families during the COVID-19 crisis.

Two campaigns to alleviate the pandemic’s impact on single-parent families

Single parents, in majority single mothers, are one of the most socially and economically disadvantaged groups in the Czech Republic. Their situation is a result of the intersection of several inequalities – gender, economic, social, and care-related. The initiative responds to the long-term precarious situation of single parents in the Czech Republic and the fact they have been hit especially hard by the pandemic, finding themselves in an extremely vulnerable position and at risk of economic and social exclusion.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the initiative organiser started a crowdfunding campaign providing single-parent families with food assistance (Spring 2020 – ongoing). A year later, she followed up with a clothes-oriented collection which distributes clothes, shoes, books and other items to single parents and their children.

Both activities have proved to be successful: the campaign has raised over CZK 10 million (approximately 393,000€) so far and the clothes distribution is being carried out in seven Czech cities. They are also being promoted by public figures as well as businesses which provide further financial support or other services (municipal offices are getting involved e.g . with providing free-off-rent spaces).

More is still needed to create a lasting change

Despite its success, the initiative still works on an immediate-relief basis and does not represent a sustainable change that could improve single parents’ precarious situation as a group in the long-term; when in need of state support, they are often being directed by the administrative workers themselves to this (and similar) initiatives rather than being offered systematic support from the state.

However, these campaigns have raised awareness about the vulnerability of single-parent families and have the potential to contribute to future policy changes that might lead to the improvement of the group’s position.

Clothes collection website