The South Africa Men as Partners Network: Mobilising Men For Gender Justice During 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against

This article discusses some of the strategies used by the EngenderHealth's Men as Partners Network in South Africa during and beyond the annual 16 Days of No Violence Against Women, an annual event to raise awareness on the issue of violence against women and children. In South Africa, activists from the nearly 30 member organisations of the Men as Partners Network co-ordinated activities to coincide with the annual, global campaign against gender-based violence including painting an awareness-raising mural, engaging the public with street theatre, and sparking debate through radio talk shows, cyber dialogues and workshops.

Since 1998, Engender Health has been exploring the complex relationship between gender violence and HIV/AIDS through its Men as Partners (MAP) programme. Utilising a network of local partner groups, the programme uses educational workshops, community outreach and advocacy to encourage men to take an active stand against domestic violence and to promote HIV/AIDS awareness.


Education Workshops

Education workshops have always played a key role in the MAP approach. While they are designed for men and women both young and old, until recently participants have tended to be predominantly young, male and unemployed. With the goal of reaching a broader cross-section of the community, several organisations that form part of the MAP network used 16 Days of Activism as an opportunity to forge partnerships with existing social structures such as schools, churches and trade unions.


Community Interventions

According to MAP, educational workshops only reach small numbers of individuals for short periods of time. EngenderHealth and its partner groups have long been aware, and preliminary results from the Population Council study have confirmed, that other types of interventions are needed to reinforce the messages of the workshops and to bring those messages to a wider audience. During 16 Days of Activism, several groups from the MAP network undertook projects that experimented with other educational mediums.


One project involved students from the Artists Proof Studio, a community print-making studio in Johannesburg that offers apprenticeships and arts training to youth. Staff and volunteers from EngenderHealth and several of its partner organisations collaborated with a group of students who had previously participated in MAP training, to design and paint a mural. According to MAP, as well as producing a colourful, eye-catching artwork that conveys a clear message about the benefits of positive male involvement to the many people who pass it everyday, the project had the added benefit of bringing together volunteers from several of EngenderHealth’s local partner groups who normally work in relative isolation.

Youth Channel Group (YCG), a Tembisa-based non-governmental organisations (NGO), has been using performance mediums to deliver HIV/AIDS awareness messages to youth since before it began partnering with EngenderHealth in 2001. Their young performers now incorporate gender issues and domestic violence into drama, dance, rap and poetry. For 16 Days of Activism, a YCG troupe of dancers, rappers, actors and poets joined representatives from the National Department of Health, traditional leaders, members of the media and young people from around the country on a train that traveled from Johannesburg to Cape Town. An audio tape containing testimonials from men who had been through the MAP training was brought on the tour and played during a youth conference on the train. The tape sparked much discussion, both among the young attendees and among listeners of Motsweding, an SABC radio station that recorded the event.

Another approach that is used is "ambush theatre” in which actors depict domestic violence scenarios in busy public spaces such as taxi ranks and train stations. The goal is to draw a crowd of curious onlookers and then to provoke them into a lively debate. Often the audience did not know that the scene they were watching was a performance.

Media Advocacy

EngenderHealth and its partners took advantage of the increased attention around 16 Days to bring their message of positive male involvement in the fight against gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS to millions of radio listeners, internet users and newspaper readers around the country. EngenderHealth and several of its partner organisations helped coordinate cyber dialogues which linked internet users with a panel of experts and decision-makers. The online question and answer sessions were structured around different themes for each of the 16 days, such as the effectiveness of the criminal justice system in tackling abuse, the role of religion in gender violence and child maintenance issues.

Strengthening the Network

Many of the activities that took place during 16 Days of Activism gave staff and volunteers from the MAP Network an opportunity to come together for idea sharing and partnership strengthening. As well as working together on projects like the Soweto mural and the cyber dialogues, staff from a number of partner organisations participated in a MAP Fundamentals workshop. Most of the participants had been through some type of MAP training previously but had not taken this intensive introductory workshop which teaches the basics of the MAP approach and encourages participants to delve into their personal histories and attitudes regarding gender and domestic violence.

365 Days of Activism

EngenderHealth and its partners aim to maintain the levels of interest and activity generated by the campaign year-round. MAP activists described the campaign as valuable but pointed out that 16 days is not enough to combat problems on the scale of gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS. The issue of sustainability is one which EngenderHealth has identified as central to the long-term success of the MAP network. Without an ongoing, supportive presence in communities, campaigns like 16 Days have a limited impact. With this in mind, EngenderHealth is attempting to incorporate sustainability into many of the programmes planned for the year ahead. One such initiative is the Community Action Teams. These are groups of men who have been through MAP training that will meet monthly, not only to provide each other with support systems, but to agree on taking some type of action in their communities, for example by providing home-based care to community members living with AIDS, or by visiting local shebeens (drinking places) to distribute condoms.


Click here for more information about EngenderHealth and MAP in South Africa.