Since the start of the project, the difficulty for migrant asylum seeking and refugee women to get in touch with anti-violence centres has become apparent. Most of them do not receive any information about the existence of the centres, their functioning and the kind of support they can offer, from any of the actors who come into contact with asylum seekers and refugee women at different levels.
This is why the Leaving violence. Living safe project encourages anti-violence centres to get in touch with actors on the territory who are involved in the reception of persons seeking and holding international protection or who may come into contact with them.
These activities go under the name of outreach, to indicate that it is the anti-violence centre that moves outwards and activates the relationship with the different structures. They include an initial contact to present the anti-violence centre and then the organisation of meetings, focus groups or interviews with the women hosted or supported by the different actors of the territory, at their premises or in other agreed spaces, conducted by the operators and cultural mediators of the anti-violence centres.
To facilitate this activity, the Leaving violence. Living safe project has created some tools – the video in animation, without words, and the Say it with an image! cards – that can be used as “icebreakers” to facilitate mutual understanding, the possible emergence of the experience of violence and the request for support.