Fearless Edinburgh is a partnership focused on raising awareness of sexual violence and misconduct and affecting culture change in the city of Edinburgh. The partnership has grown from a collaborative approach between Police Scotland and the Edinburgh-based universities, now broadened to include Scotland’s Rural College, Edinburgh College and the Open University. The partnership also includes the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre.
Fearless Edinburgh has organised a number of events for university and college staff and also Student Union/Association sabbatical staff. A common purpose statement was agreed in 2018 and an action plan is currently under development.
The Fearless Edinburgh event held in December 2018 saw over 100 delegates attend to discuss how we can collectively address gender-based violence across Edinburgh.
The main focus of the event was to encourage the sharing of good practice and to highlight issues and actions for further work across our universities.
Fearless Edinburgh is viewed as an example of emerging good practice in Scotland and the model is now being adopted by institutions in Glasgow.
We aim to consolidate our relations with Edinburgh Rape Crisis and jointly support them to employ additional staff to work on our campuses in support of students effected by sexual violence.
Our Fearless Edinburgh Common Purpose statement:
We are a multi-agency partnership tackling and preventing gender-based violence in all its forms through joint strategic and operational actions. Primarily focusing on further and higher education settings we are committed to ending sexual violence by challenging harmful behaviours and attitudes alongside supporting those impacted and building confidence. Informed by Equally Safe, our common purpose is to deliver safer communities and culture change; a Fearless Edinburgh.