On Nov 25th of that year the organisation opened its doors, becoming the first and only shelter in Estonia that focused on supporting women suffering from violence in their homes. The shelter aims to create conditions for stopping the mechanisms of domestic violence, to enable rehabilitation and resocialisation of survivors and reduce the risk of repeated violence. The shelter offers the comprehesive assistance that is needed by women trying to break the cycle of domestic violence. This inclues a hour hotline, a safe place for mental and physical recovery, psychological and legal assistance, information about violence-free alternatives, etc.
The shelter also maintains close contact with other services and officials e. Assistance is provided to clients based upon their particular circumstances, and roughly can be divided into three groups:. Our organization recognized early on that for many women in abusive relationships, their freedom to communicate with us is limited β which is why we have developed a range of methods of communication. Along with the hour hotline mentioned above, we also have developed a special web page www.
Awareness raising has also become a very important part of our work. The workers of the shelter have also given numerous interviews for local radio and TV-stations, newspapers and popular magazines and written articles for various media channels. To make best use of our limited resources, one of our approaches has been to make available good training materials and books on domestic violence by translating them into Estonian and publishing them on our web page as well as in printed form.
Also we have given training seminars to social workers, medical workers, the police, victim support workers, etc. In spring more than 30 lectures about gender stereotypes were given to the young people aged in various schools of Tartu county. We have had experience using international collaborations to serve as a basis and content for advocacy and education efforts. Some examples including the following:.
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