What We Do


MenCare is a global fatherhood campaign active in more than 60 countries across five continents. We’re promoting men’s active, equitable and nonviolent involvement as fathers and caregivers around the world.

Through media campaigns, program development, and advocacy, we work with partners across the globe to engage men as caregivers and fathers. We work with men and couples as program participants in parenting groups, as well as with entire communities, creating media campaigns to change norms around what it means to be a man. We also support organizations and community mobilizers to push for progressive legislation, and we work with institutions and governments to see men’s engagement in caregiving as a key dimension of gender equality.

Our work is making a difference. Since the global MenCare campaign launched in 2011, more than 45 countries around the world have made the campaign their own. From participation in international conferences like the Clinton Global Initiative and TEDx Barcelona, to being highlighted by the media on issues such as men’s engagement in prenatal health visits and paid parental leave policies, MenCare is receiving global attention. Through innovative programming, community-driven and global campaigns, and targeted advocacy, the campaign has reached millions of individuals and changed the lives of people around the world.

For more details on what we do, check out our key activities below.

Programming

MenCare’s programs engage men and women around the world to become active parents, more equitable partners, and agents of positive change in their communities. Working with fathers and couples directly, MenCare’s partners encourage men and women to challenge traditional gender roles and provide them with opportunities to learn and practice parenting skills. We also aim to achieve change at the institutional level by training health care providers and working to embed such programming into broader services and activities.

  • Program P provides concrete strategies and activities to engage men globally in active fatherhood from their partners’ pregnancies through their children’s early years.
  • MenCare+ is a four-country initiative designed to engage men as partners in maternal, newborn, and child health and in sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Advocacy

From promoting paid parental leave to raising awareness of the harmful effects of corporal punishment, our advocacy efforts aim to target and change policies of inequality. MenCare provides call-to-action platforms to guide partners in taking on local, national, and international advocacy efforts.

  • Ending Corporal Punishment is an advocacy initiative targeted at institutions and policymakers to enact policies that ban corporal punishment as a way to discipline children and adolescents, focusing instead on the use of positive, nonviolent child-rearing skills.
  • The MenCare Parental Leave Platform presents 10 ways to leave gender inequality behind and give our children the care they need by providing paid leave for parents.
  • State of the World’s Fathers (SOWF) is the first report of its kind. It provides key global data on fatherhood and defines a global advocacy agenda for involving men and boys as part of the solution to achieve gender equality.
  • The MenCare Commitment is an initiative to accelerate men’s uptake of 50 percent of the unpaid care work by 2030, starting with 50 minutes more care work per day.

Media Campaigns

MenCare’s media campaigns, adapted around the world, inspire men, their families, and their communities to support men’s caregiving. MenCare provides global content and advice on adaptation for local organizations to use and tailor to their cultures and contexts. Partners have adapted and created TV advertisements, posters, slogans, photos, radio advertisements, and advertisements for local fathers’ groups.