With one in four women experiencing domestic abuse in the UK and 41% of teenage girls falling victim to abusive relationships, Sarah Aird-Mash decided something had to be done. She set up an organisation, Together Equal, which works with schools to identify and correct the attitudes and stereotypes driving domestic violence.
‘Since 2018, we’ve run a school programme in England to promote the uniqueness and celebrate the differences of the children,’ Aird-Mash explains. ‘We started off as a social enterprise supporting survivors of domestic violence. The thinking was, if we can engage kids at a younger age to think about differences and to understand that everyone is created Together Equal, there’s going to be less superiority and people thinking they’re better than others and they can behave in certain ways.’
Aird-Mash hypothesised that domestic abuse was driven by attitudes that take root at an early age. ‘The perpetrator feels they have the right to treat people how they do, they have this sense of entitlement. A lot of families don’t discuss the issue, so kids are seeing that behaviour and learning it. So we get kids thinking about this stuff which is not taught in schools and is not necessarily taught by their parents.’
A key goal is to disrupt harmful stereotypes. And it’s done through fun activities.
‘We have a long roll of wallpaper, and we get one of the girls or one of the boys to lie down and we draw an outline around them and then the kids all contribute different words about what it is to be a girl or a boy. With girls, it’s inevitably sugar, spice and all things nice. And then we talk about a real female role model, say, Beyoncé. She’s fierce, she’s cool, she’s focused, she’s successful. And we write all of those things around the edge.’ The following week, it’s the boys’ turn and then in the next session the children debate the question, ‘Is it easier to be a girl or a boy?’
‘One half of the class argues for girls while the other half argues for boys, and we have a jury made up of the kids that aren’t confident enough to take part in the debate.’
The children self-assess before and after the programme and results show that at least 73% believe their confidence, attitudes and relationships have improved. Aird-Mash dreams of doing a follow-up assessment in ten years’ time to see if the benefits have stuck. ‘I’d love to know how that moves the dial, if we are creating a society of healthier people with a better outlook and increasing equality.’
