The strategies to combat violence against women are doomed to be ineffective unless the men and boys are actively engaged as partners. To start tackling the problem the four day regional training of trainers on Men talking to Men to combat violence against women was organized on April 15-17, 2010 in the frames of the Combating Gender Based Violence in the South Caucasus project.

The training was facilitated by Mr Michael Kaufman, the prominent international expert on combating violence against women through active male engagement, as well as one of the founders of the White Ribbon Campaign.

 

The training held in Tbilisi, Georgia hosted the groups composed of the representatives of the governmental bodies, professional program trainers, civil society representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Azerbaijan was represented by the representatives of the Azerbaijan Republic State Committee on Family, Women and Child Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Youth and Sport, CGBV program trainers as well as several media specialists.

 

In their opening remarks, the UNFPA Representative in Georgia, vice-speakers of the Georgian Parliament, the representatives of the USA and French Embassies in Georgia, and other speakers all accentuated the important role that can and should be played by the men in the struggle to end violence against women in the region.

 

The training mainly focused on providing the participants with information on the importance of male engagement to combat violence against women, the related skills and understanding in order to develop action plans for engaging men and boys in their countries for the prevention of gender based violence. The main objectives of the training were to develop greater awareness of the related issues, to encourage participants to increase their personal commitment to involvement in preventing or responding to GBV, to further develop training and facilitation skills, to begin to develop respective action plans, to encourage regional communication and coordination.

 

The overall organizational structure of the training was designed in a way that aimed at providing more space for the participants to explore the issues related to male violence against women, its causes and consequences as well as the strategies to combat the phenomenon. The training participants were the people who already possessed some level of knowledge on violence against women. To build upon this, the efforts were undertaken to contribute to the greater awareness of the participants on the related issues through exploring the nature and causes of violence against women.

 

In addition to this, the participants were encouraged to develop a strong personal commitment to the related issues of prevention. The creation of safe environment through the use of personal examples and personal stories enabled the majority of the participants to feel more relaxed while discussing many issues at stake as well as make personal connection to the issues through their personal experiences.

 

Further development of training and facilitation skills also was among the training objectives. The last two training days were devoted to the development of the Country Action Plans on future activities targeting male to male involvement for combating violence against women.

 

According to the training evaluation materials the feedback obtained from the participants was positive. The predominant majority of the participants agreed that the training was a very important initiative due to which they were provided with more information on the problem of gender based violence, on involving men as stakeholders to end gender based violence as well as on facilitation skills essential while working with groups of men. 

 

The training participants are expected to carry out the awareness raising activities such as the trainings, information sessions, town-hall meetings organized by the CGBV Project/Azerbaijan in close cooperation with other involved stakeholders.