In October 2014, Promundo received US$100,000 in funding from USAID Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) to create a pilot project for a distance training platform for public sector healthcare professionals in Brazil.
DIV supports innovative solutions with a high reach and low cost that aim to address various types of inequities in the world. Over the next 18 months, DIV funding will support Promundo and its partners in creating an online course aimed at training 500 health agents and professionals in the activities of the P Program (fatherhood) aimed at involving men from pre -natal to postpartum. If successful, Promundo in partnership with the Men's Health Technical Area of the Ministry of Health and other partners hope to expand the project in the following years.
The training course for health professionals aims to prevent violence against women and promote maternal and child health, focused on the involvement of the male partner in prenatal care, birth and child care. Public sector healthcare professionals will be the main beneficiaries, while couples accessing healthcare services during pre- and post-natal care will be considered secondary beneficiaries.
The model arises from research results that suggest that the involvement of men during prenatal visits is an effective strategy for promoting maternal and child health and preventing violence against women. Around the world, women who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) are at greater risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, have lower rates of contraceptive use, and are at greater risk of having unsafe abortions. Furthermore, in terms of both maternal health and gender-based violence, there are few large-scale initiatives that seek to involve men as partners, despite proven evidence on the effectiveness of this strategy.
The project was planned to be a low-cost model that can be adapted in different contexts at national and international level, such as low- and middle-income countries.
Long-term project goals:
• Increase men's skills and participation in relation to their role as fathers;
• Increase men's knowledge about pregnancy care and encourage concrete actions that can reduce maternal and child risk; • Promote men's health;
• Promote the positive physical and psychological development of children;
• Promote gender equality between parents with regard to the distribution of domestic tasks;
• Promote positive parenting;
• Prevent violence against mother and child (through conflict resolution and anger management);
• Increase parents' desire to promote a gender-equal environment for their children.
Promundo will work in close collaboration with the Men's Health Technical Area of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. Technical assistance will be provided by Instituto Noos (Rio de Janeiro) and Instituto Papai (Recife), while strategic collaboration will be in conjunction with Promundo-US (Washington DC), Rutgers WPF (Netherlands), and Cultura y Salud (Santiago, Chile ).
About USAID Development Innovation Ventures
It is an investment platform that seeks, tests and scales new solutions to development challenges around the world. Through an open competition for innovative ideas, DIV accesses ideas that demonstrate good cost-effectiveness, that gather rigorous evidence of the impacts of their intervention and that have the potential to be adopted at scale across the public or private sector without the support of long term of IVD. For more information about DIV, visit http://www.usaid.gov/div .
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