All is well that ends well!
The first year of activities under the projectPositive Masculinities: Working with Young Men to combat Gender Based Violence in Kiambu Countycame to an end with an evaluation meeting on 1stJuly 2016 at the Victorian House in Kikuyu Town. The evaluation aimed at assessing the short term project outcomes from the five wards and receiving recommendations for the subsequent years. During the meeting, the teams also reported on the experience of the travelling theatres which were carried out between March and June 2016 (4 performances per ward reaching out to over 2000 people in 20 different churches). The evaluation identified commitment by the team members, team support and effective leadership as the driving forces to the success of the community outreach activities carried out by the young men. From the interactions, it was clear that the participating youth as well as those they reached out to had an increased understanding of gender based violence and especially the link between this vice and negative masculinities. The message of positive masculinities was timely and the use of theatre was very effective in educating and entertaining at the same time. As one participant put it, “We have been entertained as well as educated and this is something that has spoken to many of us”. Going by the name of#thatguy_ who says NO to GBV,the young men had begun a paradigm shift from negative to positive masculinities.
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