APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY
MenCare is a global campaign to promote men's involvement as equitable, responsive and non-violent fathers and caregivers. It provides high quality community and mass media messages, technical assistance and training, policy and program recommendations and evidence to support local NGOs, women's rights organizations, governments and UN partners in their efforts to engage men and boys in caregiving. The campaign is coordinated by Promundo and Sonke Gender Justice (Sonke) in collaboration with the MenEngage Alliance.
MenCare is a much-needed complement to global and local efforts to engage men and boys in ending violence against women and children. Together with efforts like the White Ribbon Campaign, it is part of the MenEngage Alliance's global vision of achieving equitable, non-violent relationships and caring visions of what it means to be men. MenCare partners strive to work in collaboration with women's rights organizations - and directly with women and mothers, as well as men -- to identify and promote shared, non-violent, gender-equitable caregiving as well as safe childbirth.
In consultation with local and international partners, and fathers and mothers from diverse settings, MenCare identified 10 priority campaign themes. The overall 'hook' for reaching men for all of these themes is the slogan: 'You are my father.' Field-testing of messages found that men reacted positively - in multiple contexts and multiple languages - to this personal appeal. For each theme, MenCare partners use local images and locally tested language to adapt the messages for their settings, as shown here. The MenCare website provides open-source, prototype messages and photos that can be used or adapted, and will feature and share messages and campaigns from around the world.
These messages, of course, are only part of the campaign. They are vital, however, in that they seek to create a local and global 'buzz' that resonates with men and women about how, and why, to engage men in caregiving and as fathers.
IMPLEMENTATION, TIMELINE, AND DELIVERABLES
1) Implementation and adaptation of MenCare in at least two countries each where MenEngage has existing regional networks by the end of 2014, namely Latin America, South Asia, the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. Implementation at the local level means that a local partner organization or network of partner organizations will have adapted some aspects of the campaign messaging and implemented several items from a proposed menu or list of suggestions for taking the campaign to the local level. These include, but are not limited to: community radio; training for child development, education and health workers; policy advocacy campaigns or meetings around a specific policy to promote father involvement; and campaigns and community activities related to engaging men as fathers to prevent violence against children.
2) Implementation and adaptation of MenCare in at least one country per region in new regions where MenEngage is forming networks: the Arab States and Central Asia.
3) Concrete collaboration plans with the key UN partners: UNICEF, UNFPA, UN Women, and WHO, including trainings and workshops with regional and country-level UN staff and counterparts and specific agreements signed at the country and regional level. We aim to have at least 10 such agreements signed by the end of 2014.
4) Implementation of campaign activities with at least three multinational corporations in collaboration with GBCHealth by the end of 2014. This implementation may consist of training of the male workforce; training of key human resources staff; promoting special fathers' days or events; working with corporations to review their family support policies.
5) At least three projects or initiatives identified by the end of 2013 for potential impact evaluation, including a quasi-experimental or randomized-control design (RCT), supplemented by qualitative methods.