Campeonato de Futebol contra violência de gênero - Vencedor prêmio regional - Brasil!
Engaging men in critical reflections on constructions of gender roles, through group educational activities for example, are a key part in addressing their use of violence against women. Nevertheless, it is often challenging to recruit and retain men in such groups. To address this challenge, we have developed an intervention within the format of a four-month amateur football tournament (with workshops and a community campaign) in the belief that the popularity of the sport will help to motivate men to join and continue with the intervention. Moreover, the idealization of aggression and masculinity that often pervades the sport provides a tangible entry-point for engaging the men in discussions about violence and gender norms. There have been other initiatives which have used football or other sports to work with boys and young men on violence prevention, however, we do not know of any such efforts that have been targeted to adult men. The project is currently in the pilot stage in Rio de Janeiro and we are seeking the necessary funding and partnerships to replicate it in other settings.
About You
Section 1: About You
First Name
Fabio
Last Name
Verani
Website
Organization
Country
Section 2: About Your Organization
Organization Name
Promundo
Organization Website
Organization Phone
+55-21-2544-3114
Organization Address
Rua Mexico 31 / 1502 - Rio de Janeiro
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
Brazil
Your idea
Name Your Project
Campeonato de Futebol contra violência de gênero - Vencedor prêmio regional - Brasil!
Country your work focuses on
Brazil, RJ
Describe Your Idea
Engaging men in critical reflections on constructions of gender roles, through group educational activities for example, are a key part in addressing their use of violence against women. Nevertheless, it is often challenging to recruit and retain men in such groups. To address this challenge, we have developed an intervention within the format of a four-month amateur football tournament (with workshops and a community campaign) in the belief that the popularity of the sport will help to motivate men to join and continue with the intervention. Moreover, the idealization of aggression and masculinity that often pervades the sport provides a tangible entry-point for engaging the men in discussions about violence and gender norms. There have been other initiatives which have used football or other sports to work with boys and young men on violence prevention, however, we do not know of any such efforts that have been targeted to adult men. The project is currently in the pilot stage in Rio de Janeiro and we are seeking the necessary funding and partnerships to replicate it in other settings.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
Many other projects use soccer as a tool to work with children or youth who are under 16. This project works with older youth (16-24) and young men (25-39) who, in Brazil, generally already know how to play the sport itself. The project promotes an organized tournament for these young and adult men and to engage them in workshop discussions about masculinity and reflect on non-equitable gender norms and their own relationships. The tournament serves to attract men who may not otherwise be attracted to these types of discussions. The tournament also serves as a community event and communication tool and the sport of soccer serves as entry point to discussing many of the gender stereotypes that are often linked to the sport, including homophobia and aggressive masculinity. Campaign materials have been developed linking the tournament to the themes of Gender Equity and GBV prevention. For example, a weekly newsletter reporting on the tournament and on the themes of the workshops has been developed and 1000 copies are distributed per week. The campaign and campaign materials will be developed with input from the players and community members and are also linked to an ongoing GBV prevention campaign in the country (White Ribbon Brazil).
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
The project exists as a pilot project at the moment in a low-income community in Rio de Janeiro. It is exactly at the mid-point. The project was able to enroll 14 teams (and 134 men) in the soccer championship and has been rolling out a campaign on the promotion of gender equity and prevention of GBV. During the workshops and during monitoring meetings with team leaders, we have heard that the men have become interested in the workshop themselves, with some of them even saying they now participate in the tournament in order to take part int he workshops. Also, most of the soccer players have said that they feel this tournament has been the most peaceful tournament they have had in the community because of the workshops. In general, the men say they are talking about issues that they never talked about before.
Problem
The project is primarily addressing violence (physical and emotional) within relationships and within the community. It seeks to not only influence men to not use violence within their relationships but primarily to get men to speak out against violence in their community and break the machismo which tacitly supports violence against women.
Actions
The project provides a well-organized amateur soccer tournament.
The workshops include:
1) Testing the manual.
2) Recruiting and training capable experienced facilitators
3) Developing monitoring tools for facilitators and evaluation tool for workshop participants.
Community Campaign
1) Prepare and distribute a weekly 4-page newspaper for the project
2) Prepare posters, flyers and banners for 4 different sub-themes around gender equity and gender-based violence.
3) Develop events to take place in the community to disseminate campaign materials and promote the campaign themes (ex. theater, talkshows, music, etc)
Monitoring and Evaluation
1) Conduct a pre-test and post-test with soccer tournament players and a sample of community members
2) Conduct focus groups pre and post.
Dissemination
1) Dissinate and publish finding from the evaluation of the project
2) Seek partnerships and funding to expand the program to other settings and evaluate the success
Results
The men in the workshops/in the community will become more gender equitable in their attitudes.
The men in the workshops/in the community will report lower rates of usage of violence (physical, sexual and emotional).
The men in the workshops/in the community will report greater comfort discussing violence and criticizing the violence of their friends and neighbors.
The men in the workshops/in the community will report feeling comfortable intervening (in a non-violent manner) when they see or know about violence against women.
Women participating in qualitative evaluation will report lower rates of exposure to violence and more equitable relationships.
And evaluated model of intervention with young and adult men utilizing soccer as a galvanizing force will be disseminated.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
It is hoped that this project can move beyond the pilot phace and can be replicated. If funding or partnerships are found to continue with the project, the first stage is the selection of a community(ies) and the process of involving all the stakeholders and community leaderships. This process is central to ensuring that there is clarity within all the community about the project and its goals and that it will fit in and complement other community objectives and goals. Even if, many community leaders to not actively participate, it is crucial that it be made clear that the doors are open to community leadership and that all have been invited to participate on some level. Afterwards, it is necessary to focus on contacting and working with any sports leaderships within the community which may include any informal, amateur or semi-pro tournaments in the community and any organized teams. Rules and regulations for the tournament need to be very clear and include the participation of the players in the workshops as part of the rules for participation in the games. Lastly, during recruitment, soccer players need to understand the goals of the project and that it is not a simple tournament, but that it has a social objective for the entire community. It is necessary to sell the players on the idea of workshops and make it clear that they are open informal discussions as most will never have participated in a social project and will imagine workshops as boring, formal, classroom-style activities. Clarity about the whole process is fundamental. The greatest attention in the end needs to be paid to the selection of workshop activities and the selection of workshop facilitators. During the course of the three years, constant attempts need to be made to include the soccer players in other project activities, and in the monitoring and evaluation of the project.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
If the soccer tournament is not well-organized, it will lose the support of the players. Also, the workshops are fundamental to their participation, so the workshops need to be structured on reflective group discussions which are dynamic and which allow the men to talk about issues they may never have talked about before. If the workshops do not interest men at all then they will drop out from the project or will begin to try to avoid the workshops by any means. Also, if workshop participation is requisite to participation in the tournament, then a very strict and clear procedure for counting participation needs to be implemented. Players will be aware of any other players who somehow are able to avoid workshops and still participate in the games and the tournament and workshop organizers will then begin to lose credibility with the players.
How many people will your project serve annually?
101‐1000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$100 ‐ 1000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for less than a year
In what country?
Brazil
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
Promundo
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
Yes
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Promundo participates in the Men for Gender Equity Network of Brazil which also organizes the White Ribbon Campaign in Brazil. All the soccer tournament campaign materials utilize the White Ribbon logo and link to the White Ribbon Campaign, in that way trying to guarantee that there is a direct link to an ongoing active campaign after the project ends. Promundo also has a good relationship with the Women's Public Policy Secretariat of Brazil which is important as one of the goals is to support the recently enacted Domestic Violence Legislation in Brazil (Maria da Penha Law).
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
1)The evaluation of the pilot project will be needed to determine how well the workshops and campaign worked and where changes need to occur.
2)Partnerships with local or national corporations and sports organizations (including professional players or teams) could help in bringing the project and campaign to a wider audience.
3)The same sports organizations mentioned above need to be open to reflecting on the negative gender stereotypes that are often a part of the sport of soccer and a part of the public lives of many soccer stars.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
The defining moment was when we were seeking to find a method to involve more than a hundred men in a four to five month long intervention with weekly workshops and a social campaign. The idea of using the tournament became the best option we could think of to include men, especially older men who do not typically participate in social projects.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Several people at Promundo were involved in the development of this idea. Promundo has historically worked with men (and also women) in the promotion of gender equality and prevention of GBV. This experience was fundamental in constructing and implementing this project.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Newsletter from Changemakers
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
50 words or fewer
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Comments
hi fabio - just wanted to write and let you know how much i appreciate your idea. it brilliantly seeks to work w/ a beneficiary that so many social efforts write off. this idea *has* to work, if only because the benefits to the participants and their families could be enormous. to that end, i was wondering if you could articulate - even on a anecdotal basis - how your program has contributed to a lessing of violence/anger in the household. are there other studies/projects that might allow you to project outcomes and benefits for women and children? keep up the fantastic work!
Oi, Fábio!
Muito interessante a ideia do projeto de vocês. Parabéns por tentar enfrentar a questão das relações de gênero e violência utilizando o futebol.
Temos aqui na plataforma um projeto que tem causas e objetivos muito afins com a ideia de vocês. É o projeto "O Esporte Transformando a Vida das Meninas – 1ª Escolinha de Futebol Feminino de Natal/RN", dê uma olhada. Vocês podem usar este espaço para trocar dados, pensar em parcerias e progredir nas ações dos projetos de vocês!
Atenciosamente,
Vanuza Ramos
Hi Tim,
Thanks for your comments and support! This project includes a quantitative and qualitative evaluation, but we are still in the middle of the intervention so we do not have any results to share. Anecdotally, I have heard men who participate in the workshops mention that they have begun to talk and think about things that they never did before (such as gender equality, expessing their emotions, and violence around them). Also, most of the men had no idea what to expect in terms of the workshops and needed plenty of convincing to participate. Now, most of them actually like the workshops and some have said they take part in the championship now so they can go to the workshops! The men have also mentioned that as a side benefit, this football championship has been the most peaceful one they have ever had in the community, due to the workshops and the discussions. In other words, they have seen a decrease of male-male violence. In terms other studies, we have definately seen change in attitudes and reported behaviour amongst men who have taken part in Program H (a Promundo project which is the basis for the activities in this project), as well as in other programs that seek to transform attitudes around gender norms. Promundo put out a publication with WHO that reviews similar programming strategies with men and boys which you can download here: http://www.who.int/gender/documents/Engaging_men_boys.pdf
Thanks!
Fabio
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