Engagingmen.net has launched the first issue of its community e-magazine, "16 Days of Activism: Our Collective Action". The e-magazine is available at www.engagingmen.net/e-magazine-issue-1 .
James Lang, Coordinator of Partners for Prevention, gave a seminar at UNDP Headquarters to discuss the successes and challenges of the UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV regional joint program that includes the core strategy of working with boys and men to prevent violence against women in Asia and the Pacific.
The event was made accessible within the UN family as well as to the public in real time via www.ustream.tv. Participants logged in from Antigua, Canada, Mexico, Pakistan, Guyana, and Fiji, and were able to post questions and hear the responses to them.
SIDA, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, recognizes that gender equality is both a goal in itself as well as a prerequisite for long-term democratic development and equitable and sustainable global development.
To promote gender equality, greater influence of women and greater respect for women’s rights in Asia and the Pacific, SIDA/Sweden announces its support of the Partners for Prevention programme for three years (2011-2013) of 9 million Swedish crowns (~US$1,320,000).
What do masculinities have to do with gender-based violence? This is the question that brought together representatives from civil society, academic, research institutes and UN agencies from across the Asia-Pacific region last week to launch Partners for Prevention’s ground-breaking Gender-based Violence and Masculinities Research Project.
The first phase of a five-year communications campaign for the prevention of domestic violence was jointly launched recently in Phnom Penh, Cambodia by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Cambodia, GTZ, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and Paz y Desarrollo, along with Partners for Prevention and Gender and Development for Cambodia (GAD/C). More than 90 representatives from Government, NGOs and the UN in Cambodia attended the event.
NGOs and communications experts met in Bangkok recently to explore the latest cutting edge platforms, tools and theories on using social media for social change. Seventeen participants from India, China, and Indonesia took part in the meeting, along with representatives from UNIFEM and Demand Media, a leading online media company and expert in developing social media platforms.
In Aceh, Partners for Prevention and the local UNIFEM office are supporting research that seeks to create a deeper understanding of the social structures, norms, attitudes and behaviours that contribute to violence against women. The research will provide a better understanding of healthy and equitable ways manhood can be defined in the Acehnese context, and how men can become partners for violence prevention.
“Agents for women”, the male refugees whispered, as they observed male staff from the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) Gender-based Violence Programme go about their activities in the community. Other men, on being encouraged to share housework responsibilities, agreed, “They are not real men”.
When programming to addresses violence against women is introduced into a community it often takes time for community members, especially men, to understand and accept it. Starting IRC’s program in the refugee camps for ethnic Karenni from Burma was no exception.
Partners for Prevention, in collaboration with the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) is conducting research aimed at exploring the challenges Parliamentarian’s face in moving prevention policy forward, and developing a deeper understanding of how they can be supported in the key roles they can play in GBV prevention in their countries.
The South Asian Network to Address Masculinities (SANAM) has developed a curriculum for practitioners in South Asia to foster commitment to work with boys and men to challenge gender-based inequalities and violence. The curriculum promotes a reflective mode of thinking that enables boys and men to challenge their own attitudes and behaviour patterns at an individual level – and then to apply their skills and passion to help inspire changes within communities and organizations.
