This week (29 October 2018 – 03 November 2018), MenEngage Africa, through its capacity building programme MenEngage Africa Training Initiative (MATI), Sonke Gender Justice, the Gender Unit at the Centre for Human Rights and the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender – both of the University of Pretoria – are offering the “Engaging and Challenging Men and Boys for Gender Equality in the #Metoo and #MenAreTrash Era” short course.
The training, which is taking place at the University of Pretoria, explores the foundations of a human-rights based approach and feminist framework to challenge gender inequality.
About the course
The Men Engage Training Initiative 2018 course is aimed at MenEngage Africa practitioners from the MenEngage Africa Alliance working in areas relating to gender, development, health and human rights. Although the course has a strong theoretical emphasis, components of the course will focus on equipping participants with practical advocacy skills for tackling gender inequality. This will be done through a mix of didactic and experiential work.
The course will interrogate a spectrum of approaches to gender justice and injustice, including feminism, patriarchy, inter-sectionality and the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality. The course will also explore the impact of culture, tradition and religion on gender norms and inequality, reflect on the gendered nature of violence and economic inequality and critically reflect on some of the linkages between gender, health and human rights, such as sexual and reproductive health and rights, and issues facing LGBTIQ+ communities.
Course outcomes
At the end of the course participants will have significantly improved their knowledge in the areas of feminist approaches to gender and development, the links between masculinities and gender justice and promising practices engaging men and boys for gender equality within a feminist framework. The participants will also acquire skills and will be supported by the course facilitators – in particular the Sonke team – to replicate the course for the members of the MenEngage Africa country networks.
Course content
The course modules will focus on the following areas:
- International human rights as it relates to gender equality
- Key feminist concepts around human rights and gender in development theories
- Overview on why engaging men for gender equality and debates around this approach is important
- Gender, culture, tradition and religion
- Case studies of promising practices on engaging men for gender equality globally
- Gender- based violence prevention
- Sexual and reproductive health and rights & HIV and AIDS
- LGBTIQ+ rights
- Parenthood and gender equality: MenCare
- Facilitation skills
The course sessions will include documentaries, case studies, roundtables and interactive discussions with lecturers. A reading pack will be provided to the participants and additional resources will be shared electronically. The last day of the course will be dedicated to providing facilitation skills and planning the replication of the course in a short two-day training for in-country networks.
Acknowledgment
The course organisers wish to express its appreciation to Sida Zambia and MenEngage Alliance for the financial support in making this short human rights course possible.
