Click through to minute 13:23 to hear about MenCare.
At the closing session of this year’s Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, a yearly opportunity for global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges, Chelsea Clinton took the stage to highlight a few partners, especially those who had reached goals above and beyond their original commitments.
Gary Barker, the International Director of Equimundo, the Co-coordinator of MenCare, made a commitment in 2011 to launch the Global Fatherhood Campaign. 2 years later, MenCare is active in 25 countries, on 5 continents, encouraging men around the world as non-violent fathers and caregivers.
Here’s what Gary had to say about MenCare:
“We launched MenCare in 2011, looking at the issue that across the world, we were hearing that women are not achieving their full potential in terms of economically, politically, they weren’t able to access the life saving medication they often need around maternal health. They’re not able to achieve the full lives that they deserve because of violence by men, and figuring out how do we engage men as fathers.
80% of the world’s men will be biological fathers at some point, and we thought that there’s a tremendous opportunity to reach out to men as fathers.
MenCare looks to engage men as equitable, non-violent partners in child bearing, in child rearing, and doing the care work; not just the fun stuff, but the dirty work too. We see examples like the bishop here, and many others in this room, that men can do this work, contrary to popular belief, men can care for young children; and the secret is, we’re finding that it brings benefits to women’s lives, children’s lives, and the men’s lives themselves.
We’re thrilled that it’s now active in 25 countries, and perhaps the most thrilling part is 4 Ministries of Health have taken it on; seeing that if we engage men in the prenatal period, we’ve got a chance to engage them lifelong, so they’re including as part of their prenatal work recruiting fathers to come be a part of that visit. We have a chance to screen for violence, we’ve got a chance to offer services when violence is going on in a family, have a chance to engage men in learning how to be better fathers and caregivers, and they don’t complain, they’re not seeing it as a bitter pill, in fact, they’re seeing the benefits to themselves…
…CGI has been a really fantastic opportunity, just as a voice around women and girls and a space to say we see a need for men and boys to be a part of this, to fully embrace the equality that comes, and that men’s lives get better as we embrace the full empowerment of our daughters and sisters and partners.”
About CGI
Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 150 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, and hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists, and members of the media. To date CGI members have made more than 2,300 commitments, which have improved the lives of over 400 million people in more than 180 countries. When fully funded and implemented, these commitments will be valued at more than $73.1 billion.