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The Real Project

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The Real Project

Relationship Education and Law
Real life education, preventing domestic abuse and VAWG My name is Ciara and I am the founder of The Real Project.

I have previously worked as a teacher in South London, before joining the Metropolitan Police as a detective. I have since left and am combining my passion of education and the law, aiming to spread this vitally important message to as many young people as possible to help prevent domestic abuse and violence against women and girls! Whilst work continues behind the scenes, The Real Project is temporarily an online only platform. However, in the near-future, we plan to offer the below:

1) A selection of tail-made workshops for young people, parents and teaching staff covering
- unhealthy/healthy relationships, violence against women and girls, Clare's Law
- legal offences relating to relationships, Ask for Ani/Angela
- support systems and charities, how the police and criminal justice system works
- what we can do to help, the role of boys and men, impact of p**n

2) Annual auditing service for your school's RSE content (including student questionnaire listening to pupil voice)

3) Annual retainer offering advice to schools when needed about particular problems around violence against women and girls or teenage relationships

In the mean time, please follow and support our journey!

16/07/2024

A full day of teaching 360+ pupils at Cheam High School today 👩🏻‍🏫

It is so easy for young people to think anything to do with the law, domestic or s*xual abuse and digital offences will never be something that impacts them… until it does‼️

As well as teaching the law on emotional abuse, image-based abuse, s*xual offences, harassment & stalking and physical offences, I used case studies to illustrate why learning this content is so important.

Today, we looked at the following stories:
- my own discussing s*xual assault and image-based abuse (check my pinned video for more info on this!)
- ‘s when she was a victim of image based abuse
- Dinal de Alwis who was a victim of s*xtortion
- Angel Lynn who was a victim of emotional and physical abuse.
- an anonymised case study from when I worked in the police illustrating the escalation of harassment and stalking.

Is there anything more worth while than ensuring young people are better educated (with potentially life saving information) at the end of your session than when they first came in?

Thank you for a very warm welcome and very inquisitive and well behaved y9s!

*xed

25/06/2024

Yesterday, I spoke at the Digital Justice & Online Harms in the Context of the Online Safety Act conference at

During my talk, I discussed my own experiences of image-based abuse and the need for the law around tech/image-based abuse to be taught in schools. We then looked specifically at the law surrounding harassment/stalking; image-based abuse offences; malicious communications and s*xtortion using statistics and case studies to illustrate both the gravity of the problem and the need for preventative education on it.

I don’t get nervous about speaking in front of different audiences but I do get worried that I won’t do the topics I am so passionate about justice when teaching them, especially when telling the stories of victims.

Yesterday, I spoke about Dinal De Alwis who was the victim of s*xtortion before ending his own life back in 2022. His story illustrates three incredibly important points:
1) ANYBODY can be the victim of s*xtortion
2) It can happen incredibly quickly
3) Children are not adequately educated to protect themselves and know where to turn if they do become a victim

I have spoken with Dinal’s father as well as The Met Police and have consent to share the forensic details of this case which highlight the dangers that ALL young people are at risk of which I will be doing next week.

The Online Safety Act is a tiny step in the right direction but combatting this issue takes more than just putting some legislation in place. This does not automatically fix the problem. Especially when said legislation is pretty mediocre at best.

*xtortion

31/12/2023

Another year, another 100+ women killed by men in the UK. It is easy to become de-sensitised to a list of names, but these women were human beings living their lives before being brutally murdered by men.

And yet we still have a a s*xist and misogynistic Government who refuse to fund and resource domestic and s*xual abuse properly.

It honestly baffles me because if over 100 men had been killed this year by a large dog breed, you can bet it would be on its way to the banned breed list and immediate action would be being taken. But when women are the victims and men are the perpetrators, people don't seem that fussed anymore?

Domestic abuse is a gendered crime. Having said that, I worked with male victims of domestic abuse as a police officer and they often faced different barriers. Unfortunately this year, this page has received hatred from men as we talk about VAWG. We will not stop talking about VAWG. The education on the law we provide is for everyone. But our lived experiences of women mean VAWG is something we are passionate about. Wouldn't it be great if the hate received from men was directed positively into them starting their own pages supporting male victims of domestic abuse? It is hard for us to talk about experiences for male victims as we are not male and have not experienced it. We do however fully support all victims and will continue to do so.

I read the story of every one of these womens' murders and they are truly harrowing. What speaks volumes is that many of these stories weren't 'BREAKING NEWS' and didn't make national news. Why? Because women being murdered by men has become something that is accepted now.

29/12/2023

Sometimes working within this field can feel like a real uphill struggle.

Yes, we have a seriously long way to go to make our Criminal Justice System one that is fit for purpose. But this does illustrate that changes are happening: legislation is being amended and laws are being altered.

What it also shows is our Government and the people who have the power to make these changes are not the right people. We are no longer shocked or surprised when Members of Parliament are arrested or being investigated for domestic or s*xual allegations or are publicly apologising for 'private jokes'.

I love the community on here of like-minded people with the same end goals: eradicate inequality, violence against women and girls and domestic abuse; raise awareness of our failing criminal justice system; and stand up for those that may not feel they have a voice.

Some accounts I have learnt lots from this year (check them out on Instagram) and love following are:
uk

Stay tuned for 2024 ✌🏼

*xualharassment #2023

07/11/2023

TW - su***de

According to Refuge, domestic abuse costs the UK an estimated £23 billion a year.

So not only does this greatly impact society from a physical and emotional perspective, it also affects the UK economically too.

I have always been infuriated by the way every public sector deals has a reactive stance around most things. For example, when I was a teacher, I regularly worked alongside CAMHS (children's mental health services) as I taught quite a few children with deteriorating MH. I found that unless those children were actively trying to kill themselves, they were not deemed high enough to be given access to necessary resources. Instead, we had to wait for their MH to progressively worsen until they potentially harmed themselves and only then would there be resources available. Likewise in policing, so many 'low level' domestic offences are written off as just that - low level. As a result, the abuse often escalates and only when something more serious has happened will something be done about it.

Why do things have to reach rock bottom before we intervene?

Yes, preventative measures surrounding domestic abuse would involve infiltrating public sector systems with large cash injections but over the months, years and decades, it would not be such a financial, emotional and physical burden on society.

27/10/2023

Hi all 😊 Whilst we do plan to build the content we post to Facebook, we primarily use Instagram and TikTok for now. This is where we share all of our campaigns, posts and experiences so please follow us on there!

Thanks for all the support!

11/10/2023

⚪️ After months of hard work (whilst still working our full-time jobs), we have finally started doing what is so important to us: educating young people on the law surrounding relationships and s*x using our previous policing and teacher careers.

🟣 Learning about s*x/relationships from p**n and the media + lack of relationship and s*x education/understanding of the law = s*xual and domestic violence epidemic.

We are here to break this cycle for both perpetrators and victims.

🟢 Domestic abuse does not discriminate. It really can happen to anyone. That is why we are so passionate about making sure everyone knows their rights and where they can access support should they need it - something we didn’t have growing up.

Please reach out if you want any further info! (Website in bio)

12/09/2023

Following on from the reel we shared on our Instagram yesterday, here are our five tips for all students.

This is a whistle stop tour of the most important info around the law and support for students. However, on our website and Instagram page, we share LOADS more info on a huge variety of domestic abuse/VAWG offences, support, Government policies and the criminal justice system in general.

Empowering and educating yourself and others on this is vital in preventing and reducing the number of perpetrators and victims of domestic abuse and VAWG.

This post is for all parents to give them a better understanding of the reality of universities now but also for students themselves so please tag and share anyone that you think could benefit from it!

21/08/2023

Busting one myth at a time!

08/08/2023

Please don’t suffer in silence - it rarely gets better by ignoring it.

As well as support links for victims, our website also has loads of great educational platforms to help you learn more too.

09/07/2023

Why do we need to educate young people on the law surrounding relationships and s*x? This is why.

For us at The Real Project, we want to break this cycle. We know we can’t stop young people watching p**n or change the s*xist and harmful themes within the media, but we can provide comprehensive relationship and s*x education (RSE) empowering young people to know what is legal and illegal and where to get help if they need it.

Understanding the law helps provides you with confidence to stand up for yourself, call out wrong behaviour and get support. Having an incredibly vague (or sometimes non existent) understanding of your rights and the law leads to huge underreporting, a s*xist culture and young people being victims (or even perpetrators) of offences and not even knowing it.

Help us break this cycle by sharing what we do with others so we can spread these vital messages far and wide!

**n *xist

26/06/2023

The fact these statistics (and many, MANY more) are all published and available to the powers that be and RSE is still not compulsory between ages 16-18 years and even when it is delivered, the quality is often poor and basic, is nothing short of horrendous.

is a fantastic campaign fighting for RSE to be mandatory for sixth-form and college students. Their petition is at parliament and they are carrying out such important work!

How many more reviews, surveys and reports need to be published before this will be taken seriously?

FYI for further info and facts surrounding these issues:
- Children’s Commissioner’s Report 2023
- S*x Education Forum Survey results 2021 and 2022
- - Revolt S*xual Assault (a campaign highlighting University s*xual violence and harassment)
- - Everyone’s Invited (a campaign highlighting school s*xual violence and harassment)

Just reading the young people’s testimonies and experiences as well as the harrowing facts to back them up really shines a light on how much of an epidemic this is.

*xed

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