This programme is carried out primarily via the project of the Counselling Centre for Victims of Domestic, Partner and Sexual Abuse, and based on providing confidential, timely and free of charge psychosocial and primary legal help. The Counselling Centre is open to all adult victims of mentioned forms of violence regardless of sex and gender, but our clients are mainly women. The Counselling Centre operates and is (co-)funded by different donors and mutually related projects/(sub-)programmes focusing on previous or current violence victims. The programme provides direct assistance to the most vulnerable members of our society and contributes to their social (re)integration and, consequently, to the society and social development on the whole. Thanks to psychosocial and free legal help and other counselling services, many of our clients can successfully detect a violent environment and abandon it together with their children. They are subsequently (re)integrated on the labour market and using their newly recognised and/or (with support) newly acquired resources they become and/or remain independent, economically and socially active society members, often themselves contributing to further social change. If it remains unidentified and hidden as a private family affair (which it most certainly isn’t), violence becomes potentially transgenerationally transferrable. By contributing to breaking the circle of repetition and further perpetuation of violence, the Counselling Centre’s work directly contributes to increasing the quality of life of our clients, their (closer and more distant) families and society on the whole.

Counselling and its activities promote and empower some of the basic values of democratic society – the values of nonviolence, tolerance, equality, anti-discrimination etc.

“Prevention and education” are a field of strategic interest for our Association: through programmes of prevention and education it strives to contribute to the reduction of violence in the future in general. Our long-time experience taught us that, apart from direct work with violence victims, it is just as important to focus our efforts on preventative and educational programmes, primarily among young population, their parents, people working with young adults, and relevant institutions. In practice it has shown that direct work with violence victims in a way simply ‘puts out fires’, while real social chance depends on preventative work that needs to be systematically conducted, especially among young people. In addition to work with and for young people, the said preventative-educational programme also focuses on educational institutions, welfare, judiciary and culture, as well as other stakeholders focusing in their work on gender violence, which covers a large mass of people since violence is a social, not a private matter. From police officers, judges, attorneys, welfare centre employees, doctors to medical workers reporting on cases of violence.

“Advocacy and lobbying for social changes” are mainly conducted through cross-sectoral collaboration with institutions and activism. We consider national, regional and local institutions and structures to be the civil sector’s indispensable partner in creating a more democratic and inclusive society, both in general and in terms of protecting violence victims. The Association works with institutions directly, cooperating on individual cases, and more broadly, working together to improve the system, education, connection, networking and coordination. In addition, we believe that it is the role of the civil sector, and our role too, to correct the system, to uncompromisingly identify omissions and difficulties, and to provide better solutions, based on our insights from direct work with clients and on our experience. This programme item is extremely important for us as an association, but also for our clients, and is conducted through several smaller activities funded either by active projects or volunteer and activist work. The implementation of this field is ongoing and most projects are envisaged so that the included fields overlap and mutually complement one another (for example, projects envisaged primarily to provide support to victims of violence often include an element of education and/or advocacy). Participative citizenship, active participation of the civil sector and experts in decision-making processes, the so-called watchdog role, are only some of the values we strengthen in this programme field of our Association and these are also the main elements through which we contribute to democratisation and social development. We believe functional, transparent and lawful institutions to be the foundation of society and this programme strives to make them that, by way of education, collaboration and constructive criticism.

“Society of nonviolence” is a field that strives to raise awareness and citizens’ capacity to recognise violence, react to violence and provide support to violence victims. If we should summarise and unite all the previously mentioned activities the Association conducts into a single programme, it could largely be reduced to the society of nonviolence common denominator and each of them in its realisation to a certain extent contributes to achieving the primary goal of this field. Overall, this is what our Association strives to accomplish in its day-to-day activities – a society which doesn’t tolerate, accept and justify violence. The basic assumption anchored in this field is that violence is not a private issue and that societal development and democratisation can occur only if the community, i.e., the individuals comprising it, gets engaged. In more simplified terms, a true fight against violence happens only when it includes individuals who are not personally involved in this matter, but who rather critically reflect on its complexity and their own social engagement. This is when the ‘society of nonviolence’ is born, followed by a comprehensive and sustainable social development.

In this programme field the Association contributes to social development and democratisation through three types of activity: collaboration with the media, organising and/or participating in public campaigns and activist actions of raising public awareness about (non)violence and public informing.