Men to Men Strategy Toolkit: For Working with Men to Combat Gender Based Violence

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The overall goal of the Men to Men Programme is to create a critical mass of African men who are able to influence communities, organizations, and the public to embrace gender equality and women’s human rights as a norm. The toolkit is aimed at providing men with easy to apply practical guidelines on how to work with fellow men to combat gender based violence - GBV as part of their contribution to enhancing gender equality.

The Men to Men Strategy Toolkit shares information, tools, activities, and skills building ideas and methods to support organisations and individuals to better understand the needs of working with men to address sexual and gender based violence and the spread of HIV in collaboration with women’s rights organisations in Africa. The Toolkit provides a means to understand the dynamics of working with men on sexual and gender based violence issues. It shares, the myths and misconceptions, their fears, strengths and suggest some of the tested and working ideas that can be adopted, domesticated or improved for a greater impact. It specifically addresses how to engage men to change negative socio cultural attitudes that make them look down on women and girls as lesser human beings. The toolkit can also be used to build a constituency of men to address other social issues that relate to human development and more specifically the intersection between gender based violence and the spread of HIV in Africa.

Objectives of the Toolkit

Build knowledge and skills around mobilizing, identifying and building of a constituency of men to address gender based violence and the spread of HIV;
Be a tool for networking and collaboration between women’s rights organisations and men working to end gender based violence to build a holistic community response to gender based violence and
Share practical and tested skills in working with men as partners in combating gender based violence and the spread of HIV.

The publication was funded by Heinrich Böll Stiftung East & Horn of Africa.