MamMut

Participation builds courage. Together against violence
[MamMut – Mitmachen macht Mut. Gemeinsam gegen Gewalt]

Project Modality: Practice-research project

Run Time: 2015-2017

Cooperation Partner: GIZ Peru/Ecuador/Germany, UCL Institute of Education London, UK, MA Sociology of Childhood and Children's Rights, Department of Social Science

Brief Description: »MamMut – participation builds courage. Together against violence« [»MamMut – Mitmachen macht Mut. Gemeinsam gegen Gewalt«] is an interactive educational program for six- to twelve-year-olds with the goal of preventing violence against women, girls, and boys. It has its roots in Latin America, where it was first implemented in Ecuador in 2012 under the Spanish title "Ruta Participativa." On a children's rights-oriented and thus acceptance-borne and dialog-oriented basis, the university-trained, qualified learning guides supported the boys and girls in questioning their own gender-specific roles and talking about various forms of violence and its consequences. Due to the prevailing inequalities between adults and children in terms of power structures, girls and boys are often not perceived as self-sufficient actors. Only those who perceive themselves as accepted can accept others as equals. Therefore, the educational program focuses on promoting respectful and appreciative dealings with others. A total of 8,200 children in Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru have participated in MamMut to date and learned to say "No!" to violence. Now girls and boys in Germany will also be given the chance to learn more about (gender- and generation-specific) violence and to process their previous experiences in this regard. Based on the collaboration between the GIZ and the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences, MamMut was first successfully implemented at elementary schools in the Wiesbaden/Mainz area in 2015 by a group of university students. Now the project is going national in order to reach as many boys and girls as possible.

Publications: Skorka, Agnes & Schulze, Heidrun (2016). MamMut – Mitmachen macht Mut. Gemeinsam gegen Gewalt [MamMut – participation builds courage: Together against violence]. Bonn & Wiesbaden: GIZ & RheinMain University.

Awards

2018: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has added the project to its list of projects on the topic of engaging men and boys in promoting and achieving gender equality (see the OHCHR website for further details).

2018: The project received the first prize for Gender Equality 2018, rewarded by GIZ (read more).

2017: The project was included in the Grüne Liste Prävention (Green List for Prevention) (available as a PDF document), a list of German programs aimed at preventing violence, crime, addiction, and other problematic behaviors potentially exhibited by children and adolescents. These programs are established in fields such as parent and family education, skills development among children and adolescents, in daycare centers and schools, or in the social environment of the neighborhood. Since, compared with other countries, there are few high-quality evaluations in Germany that show which programs are actually effective, the Grüne Liste Prävention is dedicated to mapping the state of the development of selected prevention programs as closely as possible (information on the Grüne Liste Prävention: pdf, 400 KB).

Publications 

Skorka, Agnes & Schulze, Heidrun (2016). MamMut – Mitmachen macht Mut. Gemeinsam gegen Gewalt [MamMut – participation builds courage: Together against violence]. Bonn & Wiesbaden: GIZ & RheinMain University.

Downloads & Links

Project flyer (2015)
Projekt presentation for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) (2017)
YouTube video about the project (2015)
Broschüre zum Projekt (2015)
Project brochure (2015)
Children's comments about the day's experiences as part of the project (2015)
Brief report on the implementation of the project in Germany (2016)
Brief report by the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences on the project (2016)
Brief report by the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences about the implementation of the project in Marokko and Columbia (2018)
Brief report by Hessen schafft Wissen on the project (2017)
Journal article about the project (2016)
Partnership meeting (2016)
Project weekend (2016)
Expert meeting (2016)
Workshop (2015)
Presentation of experiences with the project in Latin America (2015)
Presentation on gender-based violence against women (2016)
Fact sheet on violence against women in Germany vs. Andean countries (2016)
Info sheet on the project (2012) Forms of experiences of violence of children/adolescents within their environments. Narrative- episodic interviews with children and adolescents in institutional contexts of the children and youth sector (2015)
Handout: Violence against women in Latin America (2013)

Teaching-research projects & Presentations

28.06.2019: MamMut – Lernparcours. MamMut – Mitmachen macht Mut. Gemeinsam gegen Gewalt an Frauen, Jungen und Mädchen [MamMut - teaching programme. MamMut - participation builds courage: Together against violence against women, boys and girls]. Panel contribution at the conference of ZFG - Bremische Zentralstelle für die Verwirklichung der Gleichberechtigung der Frau »Viele Akteur*innen sind noch kein Hilfesystem«, in Bremen. Conference documentation (pdf), pp. 58-60

18.01.2017 and 28.01.2016: Uneasy bedfellows? Women's rights, children's rights, and domestic violence. Presentations and workshops in the field of women's and children's rights in the context of domestic violence at RheinMain University, Department of Social Work (Prof. Dr. Rachel Rosen)

27.09.2016: MamMut – ein interaktiver Lernparcours gegen Gewalt [MamMut – an interactive teaching programme against violence].Presentation at the conference »Kinder als Opfer häuslicher Gewalt« of Landeskoordinationsstelle gegen häusliche Gewalt Hessen in Frankfurt (Nicole Himmelbach)

19.07.2016: Discrimination in Children's everyday life: Reconstructing narrative accounts of children's experiences. Presentation of a qualitative research project and research results to the issues: Discrimination because of age, being a girl or a boy. Presentation at the Summer School 2016 RheinMain University & New York University at RheinMain University in Wiesbaden (Prof. Dr. Heidrun Schulze)

2016: Formen von Gewalterfahrungen von Kindern/Jugendlichen an den Orten ihrer Lebenswelt. Narrativ-episodische Interviews mit Kinder und Jugendlichen in institutionellen Kontexten des Kinder- und Jugendbereiches [Forms of experienced violence by children/adolescents in places of their lifeworld. Narrative-episodic interviews with children and adolescents in institutional contexts of child and youth welfare]. Teaching-research project at RheinMain University, Department of Social Work (Management: Prof. Dr. Heidrun Schulze)

2015-2016: Diskriminierungserfahrungen von Kindern und Jugendlichen in ihrer Lebenswelt im Bereich Gender und Adultismus. Narrativ-episodische Interviews mit Kindern und Jugendlichen (6-17 Jahre) zu den Themen »Weil ich ein Mädchen/ein Junge bin«, »Weil ich ein Kind (ein/e Jugendliche/r) bin« [Children's and adolescents' experiences of discrimination in their environments in the areas of gender and adultism. Narrative-episodic interviews with children and adolescents (6-17 years) on the topics »Because I am a girl/boy«, »Because I am a child (an adolescent)«]. Teaching-research project at RheinMain University (Management: Prof. Dr. Heidrun Schulze) 

2015-2016: Quantitative evaluation of the prevention project MamMut – Gemeinsam gegen Gewalt. Ein Projekt gegen Gewelt gegen Frauen, Mädchen und Jungen im Kontext Häuslicher Gewalt [Quantitative evaluation of the MamMut – Together Against Violence prevention project. A project against violence against women, girls, and boys in the context of domestic violence]. Teaching-research project in the context of surveys for participating children at RheinMain University (Management: Prof. Dr. Tanja Grendel, tanja.grendel_at_hs-rm.de)