Children’s Dignity Forum (CDF), the Secretariat of MenEngage Tanzania, is putting the engagement of men and boys at the core of its interventions to promote gender equality, child protection and the empowerment of girls within communities in which it works. And the results are encouraging.

“In exile, Jesus wept – this Biblical quote says to me that it’s okay for men to cry,” said Rheinholdt Kharigub of the Catholic Men’s Association and Parish Council in Windhoek, Namibia. Such insights came to Rheinholdt as he, along with eight other representatives of various religious denominations, attended a three-day training by MenEngage Namibia (MEN) on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).

Help Kwakha Indvodza (Building a Man), a member of MenEngage Swaziland, raise much-needed money for a long-term project aimed at mentoring 600 men and boys to be non-violent, gender-sensitive and positive members of society.

In Tanzania, newly-cut, pubescent girls are paraded through villages, propelled by sounds of praise and celebratory exultations. They are discouraged from crying during what is believed to be an important rite of female passage. Getting communities to abandon this practice is naturally no easy feat. For this reason, in 2016, MenEngage Tanzania (MET) decided to focus strategically on eradicating the practice and work with a group that is largely viewed as being difficult to penetrate and resistant to change – traditional leaders.

In October, MenEngage Africa, through its capacity building programme MenEngage Africa Training Initiative (MATI), offered the bi-annual MATI short course at the University of Pretoria, in South Africa. This time around the theme of the training was “Engaging and Challenging Men and Boys for Gender Equality in the #Metoo and #MenAreTrash Era”.

For in-depth insight into what the MenEngage Africa Training Initiative (MATI) short course is all about, have a read through this Q+A with Josephine Mukwendi, Co-Ordinator of the course.