Parenting and Care
Promoting men's involvement in caregiving and fatherhood
Promundo encourages men's participation in paternal care to promote gender equity, prevent violence against women and children and contribute to better maternal and child health. In partnership with local organizations in several countries, we offer positive messages, particularly to new parents and couples, through media and awareness workshops, which have reached more than 250,000 people. We also conduct advocacy actions at an international level together with partner organizations. Check out our parenting and care initiatives below and read our parenting and care posts here.
Program P
Developed in partnership with the organizations Puntos de Encuentro, in Nicaragua, CulturaSalud, in Chile, and the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the P Program (P for father, in Portuguese and priest, in Spanish), aims to respond to the demand for strategies concrete aspects of men's involvement in fatherhood and care from pregnancy to early childhood.
It is a methodology that is the result of research such as the International Men and Gender Equality Survey – IMAGES (International Survey on Homes and Gender Equality), which highlight how the involvement of men in care benefits mothers and can prevent violence against women and children and has positive impacts on family well-being.
Through this program, Promundo encourages men's participation in paternal care to promote gender equity, prevent violence against women and children and contribute to better maternal and child health.
Program P offers training and practical activities that focus on questioning gender norms to enable new and positive social behaviors related to care and the involvement of men in their children's prenatal care and early childhood. The methodology is aimed at professionals from different areas, parents and partners.
In addition, the program also supports and mobilizes community, local and national awareness campaigns, such as the MenCare global campaign.
With the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Program P has been used in Brazil and in several countries, also inspiring other projects, actions and campaigns.
Qualitative results from the implementation of Program P showed positive changes in the lives of men and their families. In Nicaragua, young fathers reported improvements in relationships with their sons, daughters and partners, as well as greater participation in household and childcare tasks. Furthermore, through a partnership between World Education and Promundo, men in Sri Lanka learned to better deal with complex emotional factors and reported a decrease in substance abuse on their part and that of their partners. Many of the men and teams who were involved in implementing Program P continued to spread their messages in the community and mobilized other men. Currently, the reach of Program P is being expanded by Save the Children, with adaptations in Ethiopia and India.
In addition to the training, we have a manual, which records a little of the scope that this work reaches and expands access to this methodology. The P Program Manual provides strategies and activities to engage men in fatherhood and care, involving them from pregnancy through their children's early childhood.
We also make the P Program Manual available online. This material was the result of the application of Program P in an online format, part of the strategy to continue working with men from the perspective of participatory fatherhood during the cornona virus pandemic. Both materials are available below and in the Resources tab on the website.
