Men for Non-Violence

Men for Non-Violence
By Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Dec 30, 2011 (IPS) - Promoting the first Men for Non-Violence platform is one of the challenges undertaken by a group of social actors who devoted November and December 2011 to the most intensive Cuban campaign ever against gender-based violence.

"This is a living, horizontal platform that fulfils the longstanding dream of uniting activism and academia - the organisations that work in the community and those of us who carry out the studies that make it possible to promote public policy," Julio César González Pagés, coordinator of the Ibero-American Masculinity Network, told IPS.

With specialists from 30 Ibero-American countries (Latin America, Spain and Portugal) and plans to expand to 10 African countries, this academic network joined forces with the Oscar Arnulfo Romero Reflection and Solidarity Group (OAR), a Christian-based organisation named after the Salvadoran archbishop assassinated in 1980 that works with the issue of gender-based violence at the community level.

The Dec. 9 founding workshop of the Men for Non-Violence platform was attended by about 40 men from at-risk neighbourhoods, African-based religions and societies, the Fraternity of Baptist Churches, the Christian Student Movement, the Catholic Church, along with representatives of cultural, environmental and rural projects. At the same time, 16 women from the Havana municipality of Cerro joined the Non-Violence Reflection Group, and state television broadcast the second part of the soap opera "Bajo el mismo sol" (Under the Same Sun), the first of its kind to focus on domestic violence.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106343