Presented by: David Garzon, Estelle Cazelais & Stephanie Wright
Date | Time: Tuesday, September 29, 2026 | 1:00-2:30 p.m. Eastern Time (ET)
Digital spaces are central to how many young people build relationships, explore identity, find community and access information. While these spaces can foster belonging and connection, they can also reinforce harmful gender norms, facilitate cyberviolence and amplify misogynistic and other harmful content.
Against a backdrop of heightened concern about online misogyny, gender-based violence and the influence of harmful digital communities, there is an urgent need to understand how prevention efforts can meaningfully engage boys and young men in the spaces they already occupy.
This special event brings together three organizations advancing work at the intersection of boys and young men, digital spaces and gender-based violence prevention. Drawing on approaches that include online community building, youth-centred education, digital media and public engagement, presenters will share insights from their work to foster healthy masculinities, strengthen young people’s critical engagement with online content and contribute to safer and more inclusive digital communities.
Learning Objectives
By attending this Special Event, participants will be better able to:
- Describe how digital spaces can shape young people’s understandings of gender, masculinity, relationships and violence
- Identify promising approaches for engaging boys and young men in digital gender-based violence prevention
- Recognize strategies for fostering belonging, critical reflection and healthier interactions in online communities
- Identify ways that lessons from the featured projects could inform prevention, education and youth-serving practice in different contexts