Rwanda Men’s Resource Center (RWAMREC), an organisation that champions men’s engagement in the promotion of gender equality, says the country should aim to achieve a real transformation of social norms.

The work of RWAMREC, one of the players in the promotion of gender equality, is focussing on gender transformative programming with married couples to change and challenge social norms.

Founded in 2006 by Rwandan men, RWAMREC embarked on long-term engagement with couples to prevent intimate partner violence (IPV), especially in rural areas.

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"We take the couples through the journey of transformation and the participants meet on a weekly basis for at least three hours,” said Ilaria Buscaglia, the head of programmes at RWAMREC.

The curriculum lasts five to six months and the sessions may be for men or women only, or for couples, depending on the subject to be discussed.

RWAMREC’s flagship gender transformative programme called ‘Bandebereho’ (or role model) engages men in reproductive maternal, newborn, and child health, violence prevention and caregiving to prevent intimate partner violence (IPV), among other family problems.

‘Bandebereho’, which focuses on couples who are expecting or are current parents (ages 21-35) of children under five years, promotes men’s engagement in violence prevention as one way of gender transformative approach.

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"We engage men not just as husbands, but also fathers of a child that is about to come, or the one that they already have who is aged under five,” said Buscaglia.

"We engage them in conversations around sexual reproductive health, antenatal care, maternal and child health, unpaid care work, violence prevention and so many other things, but always with that angle of showing them that what they do and their behaviour are socially constructed,” she said.

"We tell them ‘you can change, and if you change you will see very positive benefits, like your child will be healthy, nutrition status will improve, your wife will be happier and the family will prosper,’” Buscaglia added.

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Impact of ‘Bandebereho’

In districts like Musanze, where the ‘Bandebereho’ programme was implemented, there has been a significant change in the participating couples, Buscaglia said.

RWAMREC and its partners conducted a random control trial (RCT) to assess the programme’s impact on the participating couples, since its pilot phase in 2015. The study involved 1,199 couples, divided into two groups – the treatment group included couples who took part in ‘Bandebereho’, and the control group included couples who did not receive the programme’s intervention.

The RCT study findings, published in The New Times in November 2022, showed that the positive changes seen after 21 months of ‘Bandebereho’ sessions were sustained after six years.

In the period after the intervention, men who participated in ‘Bandebereho’ were more likely to accompany their partners to antenatal care (ANC) visits than men in the control group, the study authors said.

‘Bandebereho’ intervention also supported men and their partners to adopt more equitable relationship behaviours, allowing them to build stronger, less violent, and more equitable and caring relationships. Most notably, the intervention has led to significant reductions in men perpetrating intimate partner violence.

"Encouragingly,” the authors noted, "we find that six years later, ‘Bandebereho’ couples continue to report lower rates of physical punishment of children than the control group.”

These scientific results, coupled with the couples’ own testimonies, proved that the project has been impactful in Musanze District, Buscaglia noted, "and that’s why we are scaling it up in Burera and Gakenke districts with the buy-in from the government,” the authors added.

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The road to gender transformation

Buscaglia said that RWAMREC’s initiative was an example of what other organisations and the government need to do to realise long-term societal changes in terms of gender transformation.

"We know that there are existing structures of community health workers for the ‘Bandabereho’ programme. Alone, we can test, and create the model, but for large-scale implementation, we need the support of the government,” Buscaglia said.

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To realise the desired gender equality in Rwandan society, Buscaglia said: "First, we need to move from gender sensitivity – which is the first step – to what we call gender transformation. Gender sensitivity doesn't necessarily lead to changes in social norms.”

With gender transformation, she noted, men will play an active role in maternal, newborn and child health, violence prevention and unpaid care work, among others.