South Africa : Men as Partners programme promotes gender equality

By Gabi Khumalo

Pretoria - The Olive Leaf Foundation has successfully expanded its Men as Partners (MAP) programme from merely being a workshop exploring gender roles to actively promoting gender equality and reducing the spread and impact of HIV and AIDS.

The Olive Leaf Foundation works with men to reduce the levels of HIV and gender violence in South Africa, by changing their attitudes towards women.

The foundation has five programmes focussed on different areas, including HIV and AIDS prevention, care and support, orphans and vulnerable children, voluntary counselling and testing and the Abalingani Gender Programme.

The Abalingani Gender Program has generated a team of community-based fieldworkers, or MAP volunteers, who go into certain areas to educate men and women and transform the potentially harmful mindset some men often have.

According to the foundation, efforts to establish gender equality have often neglected a focused attempt to engage with the attitudes of men towards women in South Africa, which often impact the mental and physical capabilities and health of women.

Therefore MAP volunteers work with young people at schools and in communities through changing the attitude and behaviour of especially young men and enrolling them to become champions for gender equality and to boost enablement opportunities for women.

These efforts have in many cases enabled women to step out of poverty and participate in the local economies of their communities.

Speaking to BuaNews, Olive Leaf Foundation Programme Manager Molelekwa Molefe said as early as 1998, MAP workshops aimed at changing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour have been held to teach men how to mobilise other men to take action in their own communities.

The workshops, which take place over a period of five days, has between 20 to 30 participants in each class.

Each day focuses on a different theme. On day one, the workshop focuses on gender socialisation and power imbalances between men and women, day two focuses on how gender impacts on sexuality, parenting and relationships between men and women and on day three they look at how gender socialisation relates to health seeking behaviours and HIV transmission.

"The theme for day four is domestic and sexual violence and day five's theme focuses on how men can redefine masculinity and play an active role in their communities to address gender inequality, responsible fatherhood, HIV and AIDS and gender violence," Mr Molelekwa said.

During the workshop, the MAP also includes the establishment of Community Action Teams (CATs), which mobilise men in communities to take action at a local level.

The CATs are being established through the identification of potential peer educators including participants who express interest in continuing their involvement in the programme by becoming peer educators.

Peer educators then receive facilitation, counselling and other skills, which allow them to implement the MAP programme.

Mr Molefe told BuaNews the CATs are significant for a number of reasons such as ensuring that peer educators and others are located within communities allowing access to information and support beyond the workshops, the 'each one teach one' approach allows for community members to see 'one of their own' become agents of change and members of the CATs are able to support each other.

This helps sustain the change that was started during the workshops and it shows other's that it is possible, he said.

He said the programme is evaluated at every workshop by participants who complete pre- and post-workshop questionnaires noting that data from questionnaires are an important source of information for the MAP programme.

"The programme conducts Focus Group Discussions with men and women who have taken part in the intervention as part of evaluation of the programme, a research by Population Council on the intervention of MAP was conducted in 2005, of which results are still to be released," Mr Molefe told BuaNews.

He said the organisation also trained smaller community-based organisations on how to use the concept methodology so that the programme and its ideals takes root within communities. - BuaNews