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'Men's and Women's Exchange: 'Same-Same but Different' Ways to Achieve Eradication of Gender-Based Violence in the Migrant Community'
WRITER: Hena Lee
Strengthening community and family supports is a key requisite for addressing Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the migrant community. Relevant community-mobilization activities include women’s and men’s support groups, dialogue groups and community education and advocacy. Since 1999, MAP Foundation has organized Women’s Exchange programs as a way to support and empower migrant and refugee women, and GBV has always been a prominent issue for the program. After twenty years of working on the issue, migrant women and MAP recognized that engaging men and boys to the GBV program is essential for a long-term effect of the intervention. Hence, in August 2019, MAP facilitated the first Men’s Exchange: Training of Trainers (ME-TOT) event. The ME-TOT project aims to train men peer leaders to initiate groups for men in the community where they can talk about male socialization and gender roles and the effect this has on their relationships with women. Following that event, in October 2019, MAP organized two events in Mae Sot: the second ME-TOT and Women’s Exchange: Training of Trainers (WE-TOT).
Men’s Exchange: Training of Trainers (ME-TOT)
To complete the ME-TOT course, participants must attend two training workshops from MAP, which is supported by the Canada Fund. After implementing the first Men’s Exchange (ME) in each community, twenty men peer leaders met again in Mae Sot to attend the second ME-TOT event from the 22nd to 24th of October. They come from six different communities - Myawaddy, Chiang Mai, Mae Sot and refugee camps Mae La, Nu Po and Um Phiem. Since two of the previous participants could not make it this time, two new peer leaders replaced them.
Figure 1 Two participants are discussing the outcomes and challenges of Men's Exchange in their community