In March, MenCare Guatemala’s coordinator ECPAT co-organized eight workshops for health care providers around themes of active fatherhood and caregiving, providing training for a total of 55 health professionals.
The goal of the workshops was to train health providers on how to get men involved in maternal and child health, how to coordinate group education for parents-to-be and how to create clinic spaces that are supportive of mothers and fathers. The methodology for the workshops was based on Program P, MenCare’s manual on engaging men in maternal, sexual and reproductive health.
Workshop participants included gynecologists, obstetricians, pediatricians, nurse practitioners and assistants, psychologists and hospital and clinic administrators from Guatemala City, Villanueva and Amatitlán.
The workshops were part of the larger initiative, “MenCare in the Public Health Sector – Engaging Health Providers and Men for Gender Equality and Maternal, Sexual and Reproductive Health in Guatemala and Nicaragua.” They were co-organized by APROFAM, a nonprofit that provides health services to poor and vulnerable populations, and funded by the Summit Foundation and the Oak Foundation through a subgrant from Equimundo, MenCare’s co-coordinator.