Between 2019 and 2021, Equimundo (formerly known as Promundo-US) and partners Consejo de Salud Rural Andino, Colectivo Rebeldía and ECAM implemented two of Equimundo’s flagship gender transformative methodologies in Bolivia: Program P and Program H.
The objective of this programmatic component was to support healthy and equitable families and communities in Bolivia by implementing gender transformative programming. By working through established institutions and local youth organizations, we sought to transform individual gender attitudes and support the practice of more equitable gender behaviors.
Transforming fatherhood: Program P
Program P (named after padre, the word for father in Spanish) is a gender-transformative, father-focused intervention that encourages male caregivers and their partners to challenge restrictive gender norms, learn new skills around childrearing and couple communication, and adopt more equitable couple and parenting behaviors. By targeting men, primarily through the health sector, Program P engages fathers and their partners at a critical moment – usually during their partner’s pregnancies – when they are open to questioning their attitudes and adopting new behaviors.
Developed in 2013 in partnership with Puntos de Encuentro in Nicaragua, CulturaSalud in Chile, and the Brazilian Ministry of Health, and implemented in more than 20 countries, Program P was designed around a growing body of research, including results from the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), that highlights how men’s involved caregiving benefits mothers, prevents violence against women and children, and positively impacts family well-being.
Through participation in weekly group sessions over a period of 3-4 months Program P provides concrete strategies and activities to engage men in active fatherhood from prenatal care through delivery, childbirth, and their children’s early years. Hands-on activities and role-playing exercises with fathers and couples create a safe environment for discussing and challenging traditional gender norms and practicing new, positive behaviors. Along with group education for parents, Program P trainings are carried out for health and social sector staff in conjunction with community-level campaigns and local and national advocacy initiatives.
About the scale up of Program P in Bolivia
Equimundo, in partnership with Consejo de Salud Rural Andino (CSRA), began the process of building the foundations for scale-up in El Alto in March 2018. The local partner, CSRA, was chosen based on their previous experience in implementing Program P, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) within the municipality of El Alto in 2016. Building on this experience, CSRA designed a workplan for scaling up Program P based upon the mechanisms, resources, and networks previously established during pilot implementation and evaluation of Program P. The selected strategy opted to increase the capacity of the health sector and a select number of Unidades Educativas, and provide technical support in their ability to institutionalize Program P within their own facilities.
Beginning in July 2018, CSRA and Equimundo conducted a series of Training of Trainers (TOTs) with CSRA’s local program managers and supervisors to go over any changes made to the Program P manual since its first implementation, refresh their skills on the process of implementing Program P, address any of the challenges they experienced during the previous iteration of Program P, and design action plans for how to integrate Program P within their assigned Health and Education sector institutions. Following these trainings, CSRA continued to work as Technical Advisors alongside the trained personnel during the validation process. CSRA also collected pre and post survey data, recorded attendance, and monitored fidelity to ensure quality of implementation.
Beginning in 2019, CSRA conducted outreach and established relationships with several new partners outside, including local military and police forces and private sector businesses. Overall, the implementation partners were able to reach over 600 participants mainly fathers of young children in El Alto.
Here is what one of our Program P training participants had to say:
“These workshops have been very fortifying for the police officers, because we are in the streets and we are very strong, in uniform you are tough, but in these talks they recounted their experiences, they recounted their anecdotes, they recounted the things that had been happening to them with their partners, others separated who had abandoned them with their children, but they have been learning as we have been learning as the days have gone by to strengthen their homes and I think it was the goal of that workshop to know how to treat the children…we have understood that, mainly I have understood that and based on what we have learned I am putting it into practice”.
– Participant from the Police Forces
Changing attitudes and practices among youth: Program H
Program H (named after hombres, the word for men in Spanish) is a gender transformative program designed for young men that encourages critical reflection about rigid norms related to manhood and encourages transformation of stereotypical roles associated with gender (such as prevalence of contraceptive use or distribution of household responsibilities).
Launched in 2002 by Equimundo and partners and now used in more than 30 countries, it primarily targets young men, ages 15 to 24, to encourage critical reflection about rigid norms related to manhood. By combining group education sessions with youth-led campaigns and activism, Program H brings topics such as condom use, dating relationships, distribution of domestic work and sexual harassment and violence against women front and center. Youth engage in hands-on activities and discussions once a week over a period of several months, and develop and implement community awareness campaigns created by the youth themselves.
Named a best practice in promoting gender equality and preventing gender-based violence by the World Bank and the World Health Organization, the Program H methodology is based on extensive research of young men in Brazil showing that gender-equitable attitudes are more prevalent among young men who have a peer group supportive of gender equality, who personally benefited from gender equality, or who had more positive male role models.
Adapting Program H in Bolivia
Beginning in 2019, Equimundo and local partners Colectivo Rebeldía and ECAM adapted, tested and conducted the first Bolivian implementation of Program H in Santa Cruz and Tarija, setting out to engage young men in deep reflection about masculinity and gender norms.
In order to adapt the manual to the context and most pressing gendered realities of Bolivian youth, the team conducted a formative research study and validated the manual with a pilot group. Program H facilitators were trained in delivering the content and leading the activities in two in-person multi-day workshops led by Equimundo in early 2020. After some delays due to COVID-19, trained facilitators started conducting sessions with youth in Tarija and Santa Cruz via virtual platforms such as Zoom in August of 2020, reaching 166 young men and women.
The reception was such that participants felt inspired to lead their own spin off groups with other youth in their communities, and youth leaders developed action plans that included conducting workshops on Program H content, coordinating with local authorities to integrate a gender lense into their statutes, and working with education sector to promote key programmatic messages to prevent gender based violence.
