Engaging men for care equality: Scaling Bandebereho in Rwanda
Programs and partnerships
Lead institution(s)
Summary
Rwandan women perform on average 75% of the total hours of household unpaid care work despite a strong policy environment on gender equality in the country. This unequal responsibility for unpaid care work is fuelled by rigid gender norms that ascribe care work as "women's work".Read more
Rwandan women perform on average 75% of the total hours of household unpaid care work despite a strong policy environment on gender equality in the country. This unequal responsibility for unpaid care work is fuelled by rigid gender norms that ascribe care work as "women's work". This has profound implications for women and girls. It limits their leisure time, acts as a barrier to their educational enhancement, limits their engagement in paid work and contributes to their physical and psychological depletion.
This project supports the scaling of Bandebereho (role model), a program that engages men to challenge harmful gender norms, foster more equitable relationships and promote caregiving by men. The program works with men and their partners, who are soon-to-be and current parents of children under five years. It has been piloted in Rwanda and proven to be effective in fostering men’s engagement in caregiving. This project aims to further adapt and scale the Bandebereho program through the health system and support the inclusion of women with disabilities.
This project is supported under the Scaling Care Innovations in Africa partnership co-funded by Global Affairs Canada and IDRC. Scaling Care Innovations is a five-year partnership aimed at scaling tested and locally grounded policy and program innovations to redress gender inequalities in unpaid care work in sub-Saharan Africa.