ABD hosts the first in-person Steering Committee of the European project RISE in Barcelona

On 22 and 23 September, project partners met to review progress, align the next steps and plan the pilot activities that will start in the coming weeks in rural areas of Spain, Italy, and Greece

ABD hosted the first in-person meeting of the partners of RISE – Responses and Initiatives for Stopping gender-based violence in rural and remote arEas in its headquarters in Barcelona. This project aims to improve the response to gender-based violence in rural and remote areas, where distance, lack of anonymity and the concentration of services make it harder for women to ask for help and to receive it. Over two days, ABD welcomed Fondazione Yunus Italia (IT), UWAH (GR) and MondoDonna (IT) as consortium partners to review the work carried out since the project started in March and agree on how to move forward with the next phases. 

First day: communication, mapping and mutual learning

The meeting opened with a welcome from the ABD’s project manager, followed by the coordinator, Associazione MondoDonna, who provided an overview of the project timeline and each work package’s progress. ABD, which leads the communication work package, then presented the editorial plan and the visibility activities, and agreed with the partners how to coordinate content in the coming months. 

The morning continued with the presentation by UWAH, leader of the work package on needs mapping and capacity building, of the main findings of the intersectional mapping carried out in each territory. The results show that support services for women survivors formally exist in rural areas, but that important gaps appear in how they work in practice: long distances, limited transport, little anonymity in small communities and fragmented coordination between institutions. The partners also stressed that local networks and community members must be part of the process.

In the afternoon, an intervision session brought the partners together with online participants to share experiences, exchange findings and practices and reflect on how to adapt the training and support models to each rural context.

Second day: engaging communities and preparing the pilots

The second day focused on what comes next. UWAH presented the strategy to engage local stakeholders and the training for institutions and professionals, such as social services, municipalities and police officers, as well as the plan for training community antennas: local people who will act as a first point of contact and refer women to specialised services. The partners discussed how to adapt these materials to each country and how to measure their real impact beyond participation.

MondoDonna then presented the two streams of the pilot phase, which will start in November: mobile help desks that will reach women in their own villages, and the support for municipalities to set up Women’s Specialist Services that can continue after the project ends. The meeting closed with the presentation by Fondazione Yunus Italia of the empowerment and upskilling programme, which will train social workers and offer women survivors tools for financial literacy, work and economic independence.

The partners valued the opportunity to meet in person, which helped them settle open and meaningful questions, agree on common key approaches and strengthen the working relationships that the project needs in the coming months.

The RISE consortium will hold the second Steering Committee in Bologna in February 2027.

About RISE

RISE is a European project coordinated by Associazione MondoDonna (Italy) that seeks to strengthen the response to gender-based violence in rural and remote areas through community-based, intersectional and survivor-centred approaches. The consortium is formed by MondoDonna, ABD (Spain), UWAH (Greece) and Fondazione Yunus Italia (Italy). The project is co-funded by the European Union through the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme (CERV-2025-DAPHNE).