GFC supports a cohort of youth-led groups and networks of community-based organizations in Mexico and Central America promoting healthy masculinities and advancing gender justice. Through the work of our local partners, we support sexual and reproductive rights, cultural recovery efforts, and the eradication of gender-based violence and harmful traditional practices. By promoting storytelling to spark dialogue, challenging predominant ideas of masculinity, and fostering the contributions of young men to narratives for gender justice, our local partners are creating safe spaces for boys and young men to challenge stigmas, harmful attitudes, and laws that undermine gender equality.
We are providing youth-led groups and grassroots organizations with flexible funding and comprehensive programmatic support, while fostering learning and networking spaces to improve the impact and effectiveness of their interventions and promote the critical role of healthy masculinity work within the fight for gender justice.
Healthy masculinity is the path I have chosen to discover my value as a person beyond the stereotypes of what is expected of a man. It is seeking to be me, to be authentic, without having to act for others. I practice it by taking care of my body and my emotions, questioning my daily actions and using art to raise awareness about gender equality. Thanks to this I have managed to heal emotional wounds and have created safe spaces to share who I am. I feel free.
Kelvin, Project Coordinator at Warrior Zulu Nation
In 2023, GFC officially launched the Kalan (care in Mayan language) Healthy Masculinities Network, made up of 19 organizations from Mexico and Central America. In 2023, we launched the media campaign “caring is good for us” with the objective of positioning care work as a fundamental task to sustain life, inviting boys and young men to become actively involved in these tasks.
Through working alongside our community partners in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras we are directly addressing the need for boys, young men, and the grassroots organizations that support them to challenge stigma, discrimination, attitudes, and laws linked to patriarchal masculinities that undermine the fulfilment of gender justice for all. Our diverse partners engage boys and young men as leaders and community promoters in the fight for gender justice, encourage youth-led supportive peer groups, and reinforce positive individual and social change through participatory gender-transformative programming.
