Further Information

,,Yfir strikið" - A new interactive GBV prevention website for youth

The overall aim of the website is that adolescents learn to recognize unhealthy interactions and gender-based violence (GBV), gain confidence to respond safely to violent situations, and know where to turn for help.
In addition, our goal is to strengthen peer education by encouraging teens to talk about these topics with each other and supporting those conversations.

The page will feature short scenarios in which lines are crossed and boundaries are not respected. These anecdotes will give young people an opportunity to consider at what point a line is crossed and then to see explanations as to why the interaction in question is an example of unhealthy or violent behavior. Last but not least, teens will learn where they can seek help. Our goal is to reach all Icelandic youth with this message.

In the process of creating this website, we have found that it is very important for us to go beyond the basics. Through our crowdfunding campaign, Ofbeldisforvarnaskólinn (Engl. The Violence Prevention School) will be able to create a more extensive database, make materials more widely accessible, and promote and present the materials to youth throughout Iceland. Finally, it will allow us to launch a website that will truly benefit young people and reach all the goals we have set for it.

A little more on “Yfir strikið” and the stories
This project will be the first of its kind in Iceland. The site is set up in a new and fun way, giving teenagers a platform where they can learn about and reflect on issues of gender-based violence and compare their views to the assessments of violence prevention professionals. We want to empower young people to educate each other, think critically, and consider situations they may encounter in their own lives.

On the website, teens will see short scenarios where lines are crossed and boundaries are not respected. These scenarios include examples of unhealthy communication and violence. Teens will gain insight into the reality of young victims, bystanders, or perpetrators who have realized that they have failed to respect boundaries. Stories like these are frequently used in violence prevention, as they give people an opportunity to reflect on complex and difficult issues. Teens can consider these situations on their own or together with other teenagers and/or adults.

About the website and why it’s important
The “Yfir strikið” website is designed for smartphones and other devices with touch screens. Teenagers are presented with a situation and are asked to draw a line through any behavior that they feel crosses a line. When they’re finished, they can click the "COMPARE" button to see what GBV professionals have marked. Then they can either continue to the next story or view an explanation from professionals and get information on where they can get help.

When discussing societal issues such as gender-based violence with young people, it is extremely important that they have the opportunity for personal reflection, which helps them to develop a deeper understanding. That is why we feel it is important to take advantage of the opportunities that technology gives us to bring interactive education to teenagers around the country. Our young people are the future, and they will make the changes that society needs – and already are, in fact.

About Ofbeldisforvarnaskolinn
Ofbeldisforvarnaskolinn (Engl. The Violence Prevention School) was founded in the spring of 2019 and was built on two years of work with several cooperative educational projects in violence prevention. Five individuals, all of whom are passionate about violence prevention, work for the school both part and full time. Our projects include designing educational materials and participating in an Erasmus+ cooperative partnership on gender-based violence prevention.

The “Yfir strikið” website is part of that partnership and is a gender-based violence prevention project.

The website meets Ofbeldisforvarnaskolinn’s main goal, which is to increase violence prevention efforts throughout society. From the beginning, the school has aimed to work toward making this education accessible to everybody.

In keeping with our goal of ensuring that all Icelandic young people have access to GBV prevention tools and to educators and other staff who are knowledgeable about the topic, one of our main focuses is on training adults who work with children and teens. Training adults who interact with young people on a daily basis is a much more effective means of promoting GBV prevention than relying on occasional input from a handful of experts. To that end, we have created training courses for employees and made them available for free on our website in both Icelandic and Polish, ofbeldisforvarnir.is

Who are we?
Benedikta “Benna” Sörensen is founder and owner of Ofbeldisforvarnaskolinn and a PhD student at the University of Iceland researching gender-based violence prevention.

Benna has extensive experience in the prevention field, having worked at Icelandic youth centers for around 15 years. She has focused particularly on risky behavior among youth and has taken advantage of the opportunity that youth work offers to tackle serious topics in fun, dynamic ways, encourage reflection and critical thinking, and promote education based on real-life experiences.

For the past four years, Benna has focused specifically on gender-based violence and the opportunities that arise when informal teaching methods are used to empower people to deal with gender-based violence and harassment in their day-to-day lives.

Ásta Sól Kristjánsdóttir started as Project Manager for Ofbeldisforvarnaskolinn in June 2021. She has a B.A. degree in English and Gender Studies from the University of Iceland and an MA in Journalism and Mass Communication. She has also attended universities in Canada and in Spain. Prior to that, she spent nearly two decades as Project Manager of the Snorri Program, working with 18- to 28-year-olds of Icelandic descent from North America. She has also been involved in filmmaking and studied in Prague in the summer of 2020.

Janina Ryszarda Szymkiewicz is a translator at Ofbeldisforvarnaskólinn and translates from Icelandic to Polish. She graduated from The Maritime University of Szczecin í Póllandi og worked for decades on cargo and oilships. She has a B.A. degree in Icelandic as a Second Language at the University of Iceland and has resided in Iceland for a few years. Additionally, she has written a few travel books about Iceland as well as articles about Iceland in Polish travel magazines.

Ari Logn Yndu is a genderqueer activist and artist who graduated from art school in England in 2015, moving back to Iceland in 2016 making illustrations and fighting harm reduction.

Júlía Ingadóttir is a programmer and a graphic designer at Ofbeldisforvarnarskólinn but also works at Affekta software. She graduated with a B.S. degree in Computer Science from Reykjavík University in 2020 and has been a student of the Reykjavík School of Visual Art since that time.

Guðrún Sara Örnólfsdóttir works for TIX as a graphic designer and takes on programming assignments and graphics for Ofbeldisforvarnaskólinn from time to time. She has a B.S. degree in Computer Science from Reykjavík University and is a 2nd year student of Graphic Design at Iceland University of the Arts.

From left: Ásta Sól & Benna. Photo from the 2021 Samfés (Youth Work Iceland) annual assembly.