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Project details

Start date: January 2018
Status: Finished
Duration: 3 months
Country: South-Africa
Coordinator: Laetitia Simorangkir

Sustainable Development Goals

PAR Report

Father Involvement Challenge

A PAR about the ways to increase fathers’ involvement in the lives of their children in Hammanskraal, South Africa.

Project team

Situation

In communities all over the world, one finds father-child dynamics to be complex, often problematic. In South African communities, young men, women and children state to be dissatisfied with the way fathers are currently involved in the lives of their children. Strangely enough, researches on father involvement so far, rarely consider the point of view of the men and fathers themselves. Knowledge of their perspectives is necessary to be able to encourage fathers to become – and stay – involved in the lives of their children. The Father Involvement Challenge aims to contribute to the understanding of the behaviour, fears, needs and desires of men in South African communities in order to ultimately find a way to increase fathers’ involvement in the lives of their children.

PAR Design

Outcome

Looking back on the community data presentation and the discussions with and between community members, we can see a clear connection between the needs, the present assets and the solution the community came up with. Where our main topic was the lack of father-involvement, the community pointed out that physical and emotional safety as well as unintended (teenage) pregnancies also play a significant role in family life in Hammanskraal. They chose healthy and safe sexual behaviour as starting point for tackling the lack of father (or actually parental) involvement. They found that organizing sport events would enable conversations and hence a safe environment to talk about sex education. They believe this could lead to a decrease in unintended pregnancies which in turn will lead to more conscious parental involvement.

Project images