CARE Burundi is working to address and limit Burundi’s pervasive problem of domestic violence, as well as the overall dominance of men over women in the country in general. The situation of violence and oppression poses challenges for CARE when it comes to reaching out to the women in rural communities who are the main targets for their women’s empowerment programmes. One of the ways in which CARE has tried to address the problem of men preventing women’s empowerment in Burundi is through a local movement called the Abatangamuco. The Abatangamuco is a group of rural men who have decided to change the way they live in their families and with theirwives, ending abusive and oppressive practices and instead collaborating withtheir wives in all aspects of family life.
The objective of the report “Engaging Men. The Abatangamuco and Women’s Empowerment in Burundi”, authored by PRIO researcher Hilde Wallacher, was to find out how being a member of the organisation has changed the individual men,proposes recommendations and lessons learned for CARE as well as for a wider audience of aid practitioners. Through this seminar we hope to better understand how to mobilize men in NGO efforts to prevent GBV.
