Gender-based violence has been considered a public health issue due to the regular basis on which it takes place and whose awareness has been extended internationally (United Nations, 2013). Concretely, the problem of Gender Violence in Educational Institutions is especially worrying and needs to be tackled as it involves strong hierarchical power relations that sustain the violence (Connell, 1987). Gender-based violence, sexual harassment, and bullying are affecting schools across Europe. Despite positive developments in the last decade, school responses to violence based on sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, or sexual characteristics are still lacking in around ¼ of all Member States (EC, 2018). Sexism and acceptance of violence are very present among adolescents in different European countries, and educational/psycho-educational interventions with boys and girls are urgently needed to prevent these attitudes (Pérez-Martínez, et al., 2021).

On the one hand, research shows a consensus that the programs with the most significant impact on the prevention of gender-based violence are those carried out in educational contexts, from school to university, and at an early age. In this sense, teachers can play a crucial role in eradicating this violence, affecting children at an increasingly younger age. On the other hand, the effectiveness of these programs lies in the solid research that supports them (Crooks, et al, 2019; Ríos-González, et al., 2019).

The main problem related to eradicating IGV is the lack of capacity by the school community to identify and act on it. It proposes a challenge in improving sexual and gender violence prevention, as it includes all school members as relevant actors to prevent the violence. In this sense, scientific literature points at the creation of informal friendship and support networks as the most successful mechanisms to overcome this form of violence (Coker et al., 2019). Specifically, this work will focus on the problem of violence and discrimination against individuals who support and risk themselves to protect gender-based violence victims, also called Isolating Gender Violence (IGV). Since the first studies on the subject began in the 1990s, there is increasing scientific evidence of its relevance. IGV extends the problem of gender violence towards any person involved in supporting or protecting the victims, no matter their sex, gender, or age. Such violence, aiming to isolate the victims and reproduce forms of discrimination towards their supporters and protectors, encompasses forms of violence such as sexual harassment and abuse, psychological violence, threats, defamation, and isolation. The scope of this abuse against the victims' protectors has become one of the main challenges in preventing GV, as gender-based violence cannot be overcome without tackling IGV (Flecha, 2021; Melgar et al., 2021; Vidu et al., 2017). 

To study a successful intervention and prevention program, in this paper, the researchers will focus on analyzing the Social Impact of the “Zero Violence Brave Club”  program against gender violence. Concretely, we will focus on the impact these actions may have in changing beliefs and willingness to intervene against violence and socialization in attraction towards non-violent behaviors. However, it is in changing the behavior towards and anti-gender violence conduct. Furthermore, taking into account all these premises, this work's overall goal will be to protect those who protect the victims of gender-based violence and achieve gender equality in education.

The methodology that has guided this study is the Communicative Methodology. Through this perspective of collaborative creation of knowledge, we’ve generated egalitarian spaces of dialogue between researchers and end-users of the research. As proven by previous scientific evidence, such an approach demonstrates the adequacy of this methodology to study the dynamics of gender-based violence, and even more when there is the objective of ensuring social impact (Gómez et al., 2019). In this research, researchers interviewed teachers leading the Zero Violence Brave Club implementation in the schools under study. A sample of seven purposively sampled schools was selected to collect the data. The chosen schools had to meet the following criteria: (1) schools implementing the Zero Violence Brave Club in at least one classroom during 2 years; (2) schools that are diverse in terms of socioeconomic status of its students, size, location, ownership, religious or lay background, and population served; and (3) schools involved in the Seminar called “On the Shoulders of Giants” in Valencia, a seminar in which teachers receive training on gender violence prevention based on scientific evidence. The concrete set of research instruments used in the research are the followings: 14 structured and semi-structured online and face-to-face interviews with a communicative approach with primary, secondary and, tertiary educators; 2 communicative focus group with students from different educational stages; and 1 evidence record table, enabled the researchers a deeper and more accurate understanding of the reality study, following the objective of social impact and the transformation of the reality. To ensure the anonymity of all participants, their identity was at all times protected by the research team. Before the fieldwork was carried out, all participants were informed of the objective of the study, of the anonymous and voluntary participation, and that the data would be treated confidentially and used only for research purposes. All participants agreed to provide researchers with information and signed an informed consent form. Family members of the minors also signed the informed consent. The ethical requirements were addressed following the Ethical Review Procedure established by the European Commission (2013) for EU research, the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000/C 364/01).

According to the results of this study, the main conclusion is that sexual violence cannot be overcome without supporting those who protect the victims. Supporting networks have been proven to be the key to overcoming IGV. Many bystander programs increase the willingness to intervene in violent situations, but that must not necessarily translate into taking action, so the translation of this support into school environments needs to focus on effective intervention programs. According to scientific evidence, the programs based on the language of desire (what is attractive or not) and not on the language of ethics (what is considered good or bad) have proven to be more effective against IGV. The Brave Violence Club 0 especially highlights the impact on those categories of analysis referring to active positioning against violence or discriminatory treatments, and the promotion of peer support to overcome and stop IGV (Roca-Campos et al, 2021) The Brave Violence Club 0 showed four elements that both teachers and students highlighted as critical factors in the effectiveness of this program: (1) Prevention and detection of IGV; (2) Scientific knowledge transferred and discussed by students to prevent IGV; (3) Increase of intervention in violence and IGV cases because of the language of desire; (4) Importance of the formation of teachers on scientific evidence. This action also had an impact when being applied in vulnerable environments, such as special education facilities (Duque et al., 2021).

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