Since January 2016, Pro-Femmes/ Twese Hamwe in partnership with CARE International Rwanda -- through CARE Netherlands and funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs – has been implementing the Every Voice Counts (EVC) project. The project is being implemented in 5 districts of the Southern province: Muhanga, Kamonyi, Nyanza, Ruhango and Huye.

The EVC project promotes a citizen engagement and social accountability model for enhancing women’s participation and influence in governance processes to address gender-based violence at the local and national levels. EVC has been hailed by the public as a project successfully helping to tackle gender, power, negative masculinity and social cultural barriers that prevent women and girls from accessing public spaces.

To spread the message across the nation, Pro-Femmes/Twese Hamwe organized a mass campaign that started on October 3 and ends on December 10, a strategic moment as the world celebrates the International Human Rights Day. The objective of the campaign was to promote the idea that real men respect women’s rights to public participation, listen and support them. It is expected that by the end of the campaign, men between 25-39 old in EVC areas have been reached with messages persuading them to support women’s participation in public areas.

When the project started in 2016, a pool of exemplary married men (role models) was identified in EVC districts. They are now spreading behavior change messages related to positive masculinity.

Aline Murekatete, Pro-Femmes/Twese Hamwe’s EVC project coordinator, has been touring national radio and television stations discussing the issues pertaining to women’s empowerment. According to her, men should not celebrate when the confine their wives to the home.

"No man should be proud that a woman’s role is doing domestic chores. A noble man gives a woman a noble place in public,” she told a radio program last month as she was discussing EVC’s activities.

Some of exemplary married men (role models) identified in EVC districts.

Jean Claude Kayigamba is the Governance technical advisor at CARE International Rwanda. He said that the project has 100 role model men who have mobilized another 800 men. The aim is for those men to gradually change others to "engage men to become partners and allies of women.”

"When women are at the center of everything, we are sure we are dealing with underlining issues of poverty,” Kayigamba says.

He said that during EVC, citizen participation has been driven primarily through home-grown solutions where citizens are involved in decision-making processes and shaping national policy through avenues such as community work, National Dialogue, and Parents’ Evening popularly known as "Umugoroba w’Ababyeyi”.

Families benefiting from the project commend its work in the past four years it has been running.

Twishime Mpabuka is a father of four who had never been able to help his wife with farm activities because his life was consumed in beer bars. The man, who lives in the Mukingo sector of Nyanza district with his wife, says he is now a changed man who even helps his wife with household chores. He has changed his perceptions and behaviors due to what he has learned through the EVC project.

"All my assets were dwindling as I spent every harvest in a bar. My wife didn’t have a voice in my home,” the 45-year old man regrets.

The EVC campaign used mixed approaches including radio and television talk shows, road shows, and artistic products for mass campaign as communication materials to deliver messages. Further, door-to-door visits from 100 exemplary married men (role models) between 25-39 of age from EVC area will target another 800 men to challenge existing social norms that prevent women and girls’ engagement in public spaces, including Imihigo planning and budgeting.

Rwanda continues to make remarkable progress to achieve set development goals. The recently adopted national strategy for transformation (NST1) has identified among other priority areas: Increase Citizens’ Participation and Engagement in Development under the transformational governance pillar. In addition, Gender and Family Promotion is underpinned for crosscutting areas for sustained growth and transformation that will accelerate the move towards achieving high standards of living for all Rwandans. The work of the EVC project contributes to furthering these goals.