Mar 2011 - Feb 2012

Through support for local organisations in India and Pakistan, UNV engaged boys and men to prevent gender-based violence (GBV) through a network of local and UN Volunteers. The project “Hamqadam – male involvement initiative to address GBV” initiated and sustained behavioural and attitudinal change in boys and men and sensitized them to violence against children and women.

"UNFPA's Strategic Guidance for Engaging Men and Boys" has been developed and carefully drafted to guide UNFPA's work with men and boys, to serve as strategic guidance for the Fund’s actions at the Global, Regional and Country levels.

The Interagency Gender Group (IGG) organized and facilitated a workshop on “masculinities and men responsibilities towards ending violence against women” for 70 participants who were UN volunteers from universities and civil society currently collaborating with the UNV office.

In the Caribbean, the UN Women-spearheaded Partnership for Peace (PfP) Violence Intervention Programme, which was approved in 2010 in Barbados during the launch of the UNiTE campaign, is operating in Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Belize and British Virgin Islands, It has been designed to encourage men to take accountability for their actions and to support them in achieving a violence-free lifestyle. This program is aimed at men who perpetrated violence against women and have been taken to court for this crime.

UN Women in the Asia-Pacific region has partnered with UNDP, UNFPA and UNV for the Regional Joint Programme “Partners for Prevention: Working with Boys and Men to Prevent Gender-based Violence Regional Joint Programme, which takes a coordinated approach to support primary prevention of gender-based violence with the deeper involvement of boys and men.

In India, UN Women is supporting a social media campaign to engage young men for the prevention of violence against women and girls (VAWG) through the ‘MUST BOL’ campaign, a call to young people to examine violence in their lives and speak out against it. Must BOL has reached over 10,000 people through social media platforms. The campaign is being expanded from Delhi to other parts of India (see http://www.mustbol.in/campaign).

UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education and UNESCO Hanoi are carrying out a project to promote gender equality in and through textbooks and in teacher training courses. The initiative includes teacher-training programmes in line with the national laws on gender equality and on domestic violence prevention and control.

In the Dominican Republic, UN Women has printed and distributed 100 T- shirts with the UNITE logo. The Interagency Gender Group, to which UN Women is the leading agency in the Dominican Republic, organized a peer working breakfast on “role and responsibilities of the Media on ending violence against women” with Mass Media, led by the Argentinean journalist on gender Liliana Hendel.

The UNV-run Takalm project in Jordan supported women’s empowerment and tackled gender based violence through a community radio shows in the Zarqa region advocating for women’s legal rights. Specific concerns were identified by a women’s community development committee aiming to foster civic engagement in local development while drawing the attention of decision makers to the challenges faced by marginalized groups including women.

Within the framework of UNESCO's International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), which is the only multilateral forum in the UN system designed to mobilize the international community to discuss and promote media development in developing countries, and especially through radio broadcasting, the following projects have been developed:- “Capacity Building of Radio Journalists Working on Gender Violence” in Mexico: a series of workshops will be organized for 40 female and male community radio journalists in human rights, non-sexist language and gender based violence, with a