Innovators have often made it an explicit objective to involve fathers in their programs and to keep them involved. This can be a key route to promoting both child development and gender equality.
“Babies need mothers and fathers and what they do has an impact on how babies grow and develop.”
- Jane Fisher, Learning Clubs
Vietnam
Here are some key reading materials:
Promundo, a Brazilian NGO, works to advance gender equality, promote healthy masculinity, reduce gender- based violence, and improve family wellbeing. Promundo’s “Program P” takes fatherhood as an opportunity to engage with men, to help fathers and their partners rethink masculinity and gender roles and develop positive parenting practices.
RWAMREC's Bandebereho program is an adaptation of Promundo's Program P to serve families in Rwanda. The program aims to engage fathers to promote gender equality, reduce gender-based violence, advance positive parenting approaches, and improve family wellbeing in general and early childhood development in particular.
Here are some strategies innovators have used to engage fathers:
1. Experimented with the design of the innovation.
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Encouraged couples to come to sessions together as a unit (Learning Clubs, Vietnam)
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Held men’s groups on parenting (Putting Families First, Tajikistan | Stepping Stones, India)
2. Changed perspectives through framing and empathy.
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Used videos, photo books, and stories showing men caring for a young child (Learning Clubs, Vietnam | Stepping Stones, India)
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Framed activities to be more appealing to fathers- for example, emphasizing pre-school readiness, rather than on a child’s health (Stepping Stones, India)
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Emphasized harms of family violence to women’s health and infant development (Learning Clubs, Vietnam | Putting Families First, Tajikistan)
3. Used role-play to build empathy amongst men.
“[Learning Clubs] has an amazing technique where they ask men to wear a backpack weighted with stones on their front and then squat down and try to hand wash clothes for ten minutes. It arouses humour and warmth but it seems to be an extraordinary powerful way of developing increased empathy, increased awareness, without having to go in for a big lecture. There are creative ways of building recognition and empathy that have substantial benefits.”
- Jane Fisher, Learning Clubs
Research and Training Center for Community Development and Monash University Partnership
4. Looked beyond the mother-father unit.
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Involved mother-in-laws in home visits and encouraged them to talk to fathers (World Vision Jerusalem-West Bank-Gaza)
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Involved male opinion and father leaders to encourage fathers to participate in childcare (World Vision Jerusalem-West Bank-Gaza | Episcopal Relief & Development, Kenya & Zambia)