Girls demand safety in Polish cities
International Day of the Girl
Safer Cities For Girls is an international programme supporting young people around the world who are addressing the issue of safety and sexual harassment in their cities. The project is implemented by local youth focused organisations, who share their recommendations with both their peers and policymakers. The common aim is to build safe, friendly and inclusive cities for young people in all their diversity!
For many girls across Poland, safety is more than the absence of danger – it is peace, stability, family, self-confidence, freedom of movement, and comfort. It means being yourself, walking through the city without fear of harassment or violence, and feeling supported in everyday life.
These experiences cannot be ignored as almost every woman in Poland has faced harassment in public spaces, and nearly half of young women experienced it before they turned 18 (IPSOS, 2021). These are not abstract numbers – they represent friends, classmates, sisters, and neighbours navigating streets, schools, and public places while feeling unsafe. Girls are calling on decision-makers to listen and act, ensuring cities are designed to be well-lit, inclusive, and accessible. Safety – in streets, schools, at home, and online – must be guaranteed for all.
Plan International Poland collaborated with 7 organisations in 2025 under the Safer Cities For Girls programme. The organisations are based in various locations across Poland and represented different groups of young people in all their diversity – such as refugees from Ukraine, LGBTQI+ youth, young people with disabilities, and those from minority communities.
They were all united by a common goal: the safety of young women. See more on Youtube (Safer Cities for Girls 2025 in Poland) or find out more below.
GrowSPACE
Neurosafe City is an initiative of the GrowSPACE Foundation that aimed to identify and address barriers in the city faced by LGBTQ+ and neurodiverse people. After having conducted research safety walks and focus discussions with target groups, GrowSPACE have prepared and published the report Accessible Cities which not only focuses on experiences of LGBTQ+ and neurodiverse people but also provides research-based recommendation on how to improve our cities.
Read the report here: Dostępne miasta
Learn more about GrowSPACE
EduRo. Edukacja i Rozwój
EduRo. Edukacja i Rozwój (Education and Development) is a newly established organisation in Sosnowiec city which has evolved out of Sosnowiec Council of Women. The Safe Sosnowiczanka initiative focused on exploring streets of Sosnowiec through the angle of safety of women. EduRo has prepared a report based on data received from the Police, the Municipal Social Welfare Center, and the Crisis Intervention Center. The report focusses on violence against women in Sosnowiec providing the details regarding the age and origin of victims, the form of violence, the location, the time of day of the incident, and the preventive measures implemented.
Read the report here Raport o przemocy wobec kobiet w Sosnowcu – Bezpieczna Sosnowiczanka
Learn more about the project Safe Sosnowiczanka – Zmieniaj z nami miasto. Krok po krok.
W Stronę Dialogu
W Stronę Dialogu (Towards Dialogue) is a leading organisation that acts on behalf of the Roma community in Poland.
The goal of their initiative Girls Rule! was to strengthen girls and young women of Roma origin through inclusive activities that build their sense of safety, agency and visibility in public space. The project involved a series of workshops on physical and emotional self-defence and the creation of a collaborative mural – an artistic statement by young women about safety and equality in the city. If you are ever in Warsaw, visit Street Puławska 39/85 to see the mural in person!
Learn more about W Stronę Dialogu on their website.
Strefa Dorastania
Strefa Dorastania (The Adolescence Zone) Foundation is a social organisation, led by young people, which for years has been working for the benefit of children and young people from disadvantaged districts of Lublin. Their Tomorrow Zone initiative involved numerous psycho-social workshops in care and educational facilities, rehabilitation centers, and socio-therapeutic centers as well as painting of 15 murals by the children themselves.
It was a process of building trust, courage, and agency among young women and youth in general —often those who had been told for years that they had no voice, that they didn’t fit in, that they were “difficult.” In this project, they were able to feel for the first time that their emotions, opinions, and stories mattered.
An exhibition of photographs taken by the project participants was set up in the urban space on Kunickiego Street in Lublin. The photographs depicted their everyday lives—their rooms, courtyards, and places where they feel safe. Underneath the photographs were their own captions:
“No one judges me here.”
“I can breathe here.”
“This is where my tomorrow starts.”
The exhibition attracted residents and families. For many, it was the first opportunity to see the world through the eyes of young people from foster care facilities.
Strefa Dorastania has prepared a report on the safety situation of children living in foster care facilities. You can read the report here.
Learn more about Strefa Dorastania on their website.
Local Girls Movement
The Local Girls Movement Association is a community of women and people with women’s experience, working to educate, empower empowerment and build support networks based on the idea of sisterhood in Poznań.
The Urban Sisterhood initiative is a project that grew out of the need to create a city where every female resident of Poznań regardless of her background – feels safe, heard and represented. Under the project, Local Girls Movement carried out workshops, advocacy meetings, safety walks, a public campaign and educational events to address women’s and girls’ safety in urban spaces. The key activities included: bystander intervention workshops, Advocacy Academy, exploratory safety walks leading to an interactive safety map of Poznań, educational events, a panel discussion, a film screening and a webinar on feminist urbanism, and the Urban Sisterhood campaign – the first outdoor campaign of Local Girls Movement.
Contact Local Girls Movement on LinkedIn
Zustricz
Zustricz Foundation has been working in Poland since 2015 for the integration and adaptation of people with migrant experience, especially from Ukraine.
Among migrant women, risks are particularly heightened due to unfamiliarity with the language, low knowledge of available support points and the system for reporting violence, and fear of stigmatisation or negative consequences of disclosing violence. The project aimed to increase the safety of young women in Krakow, particularly migrants and refugees aged 14–25, through education, the development of self-defence and assertiveness skills, and the strengthening of social support networks.
Under the Safer Cities For Girls project, Zustricz has implemented various activities to help the residents of Krakow feel safer:
- Workshops with cyber security, communication, increasing assertiveness, self-defence elements.
- A safety map of Krakow and its surroundings was created, adding 9 Miejski Ośrodek Pomocy Społecznej (municipal social welfare centres/MOPS) locations, 11 police stations, 12 women’s shelters, 50 psychological centers, 10 hospital emergency rooms, and 33 places considered dangerous by the community. The map remains an open tool and will be updated on an ongoing basis. You can visit the map here: Zustricz Safety Map.
The project contributed to increasing the participants’ awareness of safety, strengthening their psychosocial competences and practical self-defence skills, as well as creating tools to facilitate the reporting and monitoring of dangerous places in Krakow.
Learn more about Zustricz Foundation: Fundacja Zustricz
Free Dom
Free Dom is a refugee-led organisation founded by psychologists for Ukraine in Toruń, Poland, with a goal to promote mental health, counter exclusion and build intercultural bridges.
Under the Safer Cities For Girls project, Free Dom has successfully engaged women and girls across multiple activities designed to enhance personal safety, confidence, and community awareness. Incorporating a holistic approach, Free Dom has offered their project participants from Poland and Ukraine various activities tailored to enhance participants’ personal safety, confidence, and awareness, while promoting community engagement and tangible contributions to making cities safer for women.
The activities included safety walks, art-therapy workshops, culminating in a public exhibition that amplified women’s voices in community safety discussions, group meetings with psychologist, and, finally, the seminar that brought together experts, NGOs, and community members to identify safety challenges and develop practical solutions, fostering collaboration and institutional support for safer urban environments.
Read the report of women’s testimonies and practical recommendations on increasing safety of their city: Free Dom report
Learn more about Free Dom: Fundacja Free Dom.
Every girl has the right to live without fear
Categories: Campaigns, Sexual and reproductive health and rights, Youth empowerment
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