Healthy Relationship Programme Development
In response to calls from parents and community leaders, Shama has created a healthy relationships programme for ethnic young people.
Ethnic young people need strong networks of community around them to mitigate social marginalization, and addressing and celebrating ethnic family relationship and community dynamics are part of healthy relationships for ethnic young people – it’s not all about romantic relationships.
Shama worked with ethnic young people, parents, and caregivers to develop a 10-session holistic healthy relationships programme to meet these needs.
The Healthy Relationships programme aims to equip young ethnic people with the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to foster healthy relationships across various domains, including with peers, family, and within their broader communities. The program’s specific goals include improving participants’ understanding of what constitutes healthy and unhealthy relationships, developing self-reflection and communication skills, and providing practical strategies for managing relationship conflicts. The programme also aims to enhance participants’ ability to navigate cultural differences and identity-
related challenges in relationships, with a focus on strengthening personal and collective resilience.
By addressing topics such as peer support, family dynamics, gender expectations, and community belonging, the programme sees to empower participants to recognize and celebrate positive relationship behaviours while identifying and addressing negative patterns. Ultimately, the programme aims at helping participants build stronger connections with their cultural backgrounds and communities, fostering a sense of pride and belonging.
Key values identified in Connections!
- Education – to increase availability of information for all community members
- Respect – to develop respect for different gender, cultural and religious identities, develop respect in relationships and what it truly means to respect others as human
- Openness – to establish processes for addressing violence or issues within communities
- Acceptance – to grow acceptance for all community members to address stigma and collective community shame, including around disclosing violence or talking about sex
Justice – is highly valued as a restorative process for communities to challenge dominance and create fair community dynamics
Communication – strengthening the value and practice of talking about difficult topics enables protective conversations within relationships, families and communities
Healthy physical contact – many communities value healthy physical contact within families to strengthen social bonds. Intercultural dialogue allows us to explicitly explore and check boundaries rather than make assumptions
Culturally oriented communications/practice – positive valuing of ‘normal’ cultural values
Human rights – extending education about awareness of rights in the context of violence
For more information and.or to get in touch email prevention@shama.org.nz
