New models for engaging men as responsible partners and caring fathers, within a gender equality and child rights perspective, have been initiated in Jharkhand and the learning results shared widely among men’s networks and others in Jharkhand and West Bengal for upscaling.
An intensive field intervention in Jharkhand, ‘Enabling Men as Responsible Partners and Caring Fathers’, was implemented in the three districts of Ranchi, Bokaro and Gumla with the support of partner organisations Srijan Foundation, Sahayogini and Chotanagpur Sanskritik Sangh (CSS). At the same time extensive work on the issue was carried out with 174 organisations and individuals in an additional 13 districts of Jharkhand, and with 19 organisations in 9 districts of West Bengal.
These led to developing a model of processes and interventions for facilitating changes in attitudes and behaviors among young fathers and other men on child rights and gender equality at the personal and community level through awareness building, creation of peer support groups and capacity building. The groups are linked with national and state networks and alliances, engaging in collective advocacy for involving men to promote gender equality and secure child rights. State level networks of practitioners in Jharkhand and West Bengal are also supported to enable them to incorporate work with men for gender equality into their existing interventions for women’s and child rights.
The intervention has led to a discourse on masculinities and the need for it changing from manifestations of non-caring, violence, ‘power-over’ and privileged, to a framework instead of ‘power-with’. The outcomes include reduced violence against women and girls, reduced gender differences in burden of care work, reduced disparities in education, reduced policing by brothers of sisters, greater health and well-being of children including better immunisation and nutrition, and protecting the rights of children/girl child including preventing early marriage of girls, reduction in children’s corporal punishment and more affectionate interactions with them. Group members encourage their partners to join SHGs and to engage in paid work and higher education; reproductive decisions are jointly taken, and their partners are not forced into sexual relations. The members have emerged as change agents at the local level.
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