Redes de Apoio Social e Enfrentamento às Violências Contra as Mulheres: Relato de Experiência de um Curso de Extensão Universitária

Violence against women has shown increasing and worrying figures, so it is imperative to review coping strategies and promote spaces for debate and the construction of alternatives aimed at strengthening women so that they can expand their support and protection networks, since violence cannot be dealt with in isolation. Therefore, it is necessary to stimulate discussions in various social contexts, ranging from education, health, security, etc. Discussing violence against women at an academic level is a complex task and requires facilitators to be dynamic and ethical-political in their actions. It is necessary to think about theory and praxis in an intersectional context, since gender-based violence operates through different devices. The aim of this study is to discuss the results of a university extension course on social support networks and dealing with violence against women. As a methodological approach, we opted for the qualitative, descriptive model, through an experience report of an extension course conducted with 40 participants between August and October 2022. We have divided the results and discussion into three topics: the planning of the course, where we point out how the methodology for running the course was developed; a topic on the category of social support network as a strategy for collectively confronting violence against women; and the third topic discusses the impact of the course on the participants' reality. This journey has provided us with important elements about teaching practices and the debate on violence against women, highlighting education as a necessary component for promoting policies to confront the various forms of violence, as well as for refuting that the social support networks built by women to confront violence become stronger when critical knowledge on the subject is produced.