Grupo VITA has launched an awareness and education program on sexual violence with various church-affiliated organizations, an initiative that will extend to civil society institutions, the group’s coordinator announced this Monday.
In a statement, psychologist Rute Agulhas explained that the training program began in June, when diocesan commissions and the Conference of Religious Institutes answered a questionnaire to “outline with greater precision the actions to be developed” and that this process is currently ongoing. , a course with catechists and teachers of Catholic moral and religious education, starting in September.
Already scheduled for October (2 and 18) and November (3 and 13) are four awareness-raising actions with the National Confederation of Solidarity Institutions (CNIS), each lasting four hours and taking place in Fatima and in a hybrid model. The Association of Higher Technical Specialists in Social Education has already held an action on June 29 and plans to hold another action on September 28.
Highlighting that this area of education and awareness raising to prevent sexual violence is “one of the areas of intervention”, the VITA group also acknowledges that “more awareness raising activities are being considered with the Cáritas Portuguesa, the Order of Physiotherapists, the Order of Advocates and the Directorate General of Education”.
Grupo VITA can be contacted via the helpline number (91 509 0000) or via the alarm form now available on the website www.grupovita.pt.
Created in April as part of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference, the group sees itself as liberated, autonomous and independent and aims to welcome, listen, monitor and prevent situations of sexual abuse against children and vulnerable adults in the context of the Catholic Church. , in system intervention logic.
The VITA group arose from the work of the Independent Commission for the Study of Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church, led by child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, who, over the course of almost a year, corroborated 512 testimonies about cases that occurred between 1950 and 2022, pointing by extrapolation to the minimum number of victims of 4815 people.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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