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Happy Father’s Day!

No prizes for guessing that Womankind Worldwide works with women. But you might not know that we also work with men. Of course the focus of all our work is supporting women to transform their lives and their communities (why women? find out here) but with Father’s Day at the weekend it seemed like a good time to say thank you to all the men who support Womankind Worldwide and our work.

Thank you to our founder, supporters, colleagues and allies

Firstly, thank you to our founding father Sir Alec Reed, who set up Womankind back in 1990. At our 20th anniversary celebration Sir Alec told us how the inspiration to create Womankind came from working with a largely female workforce at his company, Reed Employment.  Seeing how effective women were at work he decided that setting up a charity to work with women in the developing world would have great results. Sir Alec, Happy Father’s Day! You were right.

Secondly, thank you to all the men who fundraise for us and donate to Womankind.  Nearly 1 in 5 of our regular supporters are men, which by my calculations mean that they contribute £15,000 a month. 72p in every pound goes directly to Womankind’s development, campaigning and policy work, so your support is making a big difference where it counts. Thank you.

Next, thank you to the men who work with us, either here in the Womankind office (thanks Adrian, Dave, Richard and Tom!) or in our partner organisations. And to the volunteers and community members in the countries we work in who speak out against discrimination and violence, and pledge to change long-standing practices that harm women.

Changing attitudes

It takes courage to stand up and admit that it is time for change, especially when that change has to start with your own thoughts and behaviour. A ground-breaking project to end the cycle of violence in rural Ghana shows that Womankind and our partners can make a real difference on the ground through working with men as well as women. Here Victoria speaks about how a project to change attitudes towards male violence has transformed how her husband thinks about women and treats her and their children:

“Before the programme came to my town, my marriage was very difficult. We both used to go and work on the farm but when my husband would return from the farm, he would expect me to cook for him and if I didn’t cook fast enough for him, he would shout at me.

Then Adwoa (the project worker) came to say that there would be a community meeting. We started discussing violence against women and children. The next time that Adwoa came to the village, I suggested that my husband attend the meeting with me.

Slowly, as a result, he started changing his life style. Now my husband brings home food crops which I can then cook for both of us. Now we talk happily amongst ourselves. This change in our relationship, I can relate to the awareness raising brought by the programme.

Together, my husband and I have decided to send our first born to school. This is because the project linked violence against women to education, so my husband said that he didn’t want our son to fall into the same trap that he did.”

Family

Finally, on the home front this is a chance to say thank you to my husband, who looks after the kids when I need to work late in the office and last but not least to my Dad, one of the army of volunteers that Womankind rely on, who gave us some pro bono legal advice last week.  Happy Father’s Day!

Post by Ellie Fujioka, Womankind’s Head of Fundraising and Communications.

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