Men As Partners Conference

Men as Partners is changing minds. 

I can't think of anything better than that, and that is exactly what happened these last two weeks. 

learning about the risks of cross-generational sex, transactional sex, and maintaining multiple sexual partners

Talking about how we treat others

presenting action plans for how to bring it all back to the community

getting in the right headspace to talk about the hard stuff

Men as Partners is a gender-equality, HIV-prevention, healthy relationships, personal health manual Catherine received from her Peace Corps friend in Burkina Faso that we translated into Spanish and adapted for El Salvador. Emily and Catherine each wrote a grant, I trained up my two counterparts to teach the HIV prevention talks, and we took the show on the road. We held two four-day conferences in quick succession, one with Western PCVs in Suchitoto, and the other with Eastern PCVs in Perquin. The two conferences had totally different vibes, but I think (I desperately hope) the attendees took their learning to heart and will help start the ripples of change this country needs to break out of its machismo, strict gender roles and cultural stagnation. 

First, huge props go out to Catherine and Emily, who organized the whole thing, sent out endless emails and schedules, kept us all on track, and got us to translate the trainings before we had to present them. Below is a look at more or less what our schedule looked like for the four days. It was a chance to delve into normally taboo subjects, and to challenge the men in attendance to recognize machismo and raise awareness about sexual and mental health among men in their communities.

Suchitoto crew

Perquin PCV crew

	Day 1: Friday April 24, 2015	Day 2: Saturday April 25	Day 3: Sunday April 26	Day 4: Monday April 27
7:00 AM	Travel	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast
7:45 AM
8:00 AM		Warm-up	Warm up	Closing Ceremony, Post- Test + Check Out
9:00 AM		Alphabets of Prevention + Defining Abstinence	Decision Making and Substance Abuse
10:00 AM		Multiple Sexual Partners, Cross- Generational Sex, and Transactional Sex	What is Violence	Return to Communities
11:00 AM		Condom, HIV & AIDS myths and facts	What to Do When I am Angry
12:00 PM	Arrive + Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
1:00 PM
1:30 PM		Learning About Condoms	Understanding the Cycle of Violence (120 min)
2:00 PM	Welcome + Rules + Expectations + Pre Test	Condoms step by step	Prep time for community presentations
2:30 PM	Looking at Our Attributes (prejudices)	Talking About Using Condoms
3:00 PM	Learning About Gender (gender v sex)	The Risk of Alcohol Abuse and HIV	BREAK
4:00 PM	Act Like A Man (gender norms and machismo)	Rights, Diversity and discrimination
5:00 PM	Person and Things (power relationships)	Caring for Oneself: Men, Gender and Health	Dinner
6:00 PM	Dinner	Dinner	Community Presentations
7:00 PM
8:00 PM	Want...Don't Want (excuses about sex and condoms)	Men's Circle of Confidence	Feedback + Action Plans - Catherine
9:00 PM	Volunteer Meeting	Volunteer Meeting	Sing-off and Dance-off
10:00 PM	SLEEEEEEEEPPPP	SLEEEEEEEEEEP	SLEEEEEEEEEEEP

"Act like a man"

"violence against me"

Moments of pride: 

I brought Alfonso and Javi as facilitators to both of the conferences, and I couldn't be prouder of the hard work they put in to present their topics and contribute to the discussion. Javi is always outgoing, and sometimes took over the discussion, but he's a good facilitator who asks relevant questions. Alfonso is much quieter and less self-confident, but by the second conference he was directing conversation towards important revelations, participating fully, and really taking the lead. I'm hugely grateful to both of them for being open about their sexuality and sharing their experiences with the group because it's hard to hold on to prejudice when you know someone and can start to walk in their shoes. The courage they had to be open with near strangers in a country that is extremely homophobic and largely uneducated about any deviations from the norm made me just want to hug them both. 

Asiha and Alfonso

Alfonso and Javi facilitating activities about myths about HIV/AIDS and condom use

Suchitoto highlights: 

The men were pretty young, mostly leaders, and pretty well educated. They absorbed the information quickly and thoughtfully responded to the activities. In the activity about examining our prejudices, it was really fascinating to listen to the men as they recognized their prejudices and talked about how to change them. In particular, one said that intellectually he can accept that a woman who carries a condom isn't "easy," but in reality when he sees a woman with a condom he thinks differently. We talked about protecting oneself and the cultural stigma that men are allowed to look for and enjoy sex while women are not, and how we need to shift our cultural attitudes to encourage better relationships, enjoy equal rights, and lead healthier lives. At the end when we asked them to write down what they wanted to change about their own lives, it was beautiful to see men saying they wanted to do things like get an HIV test, learn to control their anger, take care to avoid practicing psychological violence especially at home and with friends, appreciate their mothers and stop objectifying women. Sweeping changes are good, but it's the little things that will make a difference in our day to day lives and one less machista man is one more advocate for a better way to live. 

taking a breather after a long violence session

action plan - focus on consequences of alcohol abuse

Perquin highlights: 

The group included a large age range and was significantly less educated, so it was more difficult to get the points across and really delve deeply into the topics, but it had its advantages too. Their machismo felt closer to the surface and less ingrained - they knew what they didn't know and were willing to take it all in and learn from the entire experience. Both Alfonso and Javi said the second group was more accepting of them and less fearful of little things like standing next to them or doing activities together. The group was really into icebreakers and games, so we ended up doing things like a sing-off and icebreaker games in the evenings, which were hilarious. 

We added an activity about rights and diversity to the second conference after we saw the dynamics of the first one, and that was my favorite activity by far. It goes like this - each participant is given a piece of paper with a statement (I have HIV, I treat women well, I cheated on my partner, I'm gay, I'm a street child, my mother is a prostitute, etc). They read their statement and tape it to their shirts, then walk around greeting each other. Then we all sit in a circle and each person comes up with a story about themselves as this person, which they share one by one. Afterwards we have time to ask, in character, about the lives of the others. That leads into a group discussion about how some of the characters treated others, how we treat people in real life, why it's impossible and unjust to judge someone based on one thing, what is discrimination, etc. I liked the activity from reading it, but it took on a whole new life with the group. They really took their roles seriously and came up with entire life stories for them, empathizing with their struggles and wondering how to make others see their worth despite the stigma placed upon them. Javi used his to talk about his real life and the struggles and discrimination he faces every day, and I could feel the message hitting home with the group. It was an amazing activity, and the highlight for me of the entire conference. 

the Perquin group got really tight by the end

"How I want to change my life"

action plan - focus on violence and correct condom use

Send me a comment or a quick email if you are interested in replicating these trainings, and I can forward the manual along in English.

Update: All of this feels very relevant as Ireland just passed its marriage equality law by a huge margin. I can only hope that El Salvador will follow the trend slowly but surely and create space for equality in its own culture and equity in its laws.