Training of Trainers programme was conducted to enhance the knowledge and skills of trainers to conduct community awareness sessions in Mannar.

This manual 'Changing prevalent beliefs and attitudes that reinforce harmful norms and behaviours contributing to violence against women' was developed based on the findings of the Formative research conducted in Mannar on social and gender norms. 

The National Women’s Wellbeing Survey3 on women’s lifetime experiences of SGBV provides some alarming insights. The survey indicates that one in four women (24.9%) has experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15 by a partner or non-partner.1 On intimate partner violence the survey finds that one in five (20.4%) ever-partnered women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Further, the survey finds that non partner violence is considerably less in Sri Lanka with less than one in ten (7.2%) women having experienced physical violence by a non-partner since age 15 years.

This Manual aims to train a group of Resource Persons to raise awareness at community level on beliefs and attitudes that reinforce harmful norms and behaviours contributing to violence against women and girls in order to support the prevention of violence against women and girls by addressing and striving to change harmful norms, practices, beliefs and attitudes that contribute to violence against women at community level. The Manual strives to raise awareness, and encourage discourse and activism to set in place a process of changing prevalent beliefs and attitudes that reinforce harmful norms and behaviours contributing to violence against women.

This user friendly manual is a guide to Resource Persons to prepare for the conducting of one day community programmes in local languages (Sinhala and Tamil). This manual provides practical examples and theoretical concepts for understanding processes related to attitudinal and collective behavioural change. The Manual is complete with a Resource Booklet and a Dlide Deck which can also be converted into flipcharts for Resource Persons, and handouts to be distributed at the community programmes. The Manual is based on information gathered from the UNFPA led formative research to understand drivers of violence against women, and from modules, tools and literature provided by UNFPA as well as other sources.