Focus Package: Gender

With this resource, Health COMpass provides access to health communication tools and project materials that focus on gender. They also provide a link to a full list of over 70 gender-focused materials available on their site.

A sampling of the gender tools and project examples highlighted in this Focus Package follows:

Tools -

• Communicating Gender for Rural Development - a tool produced by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) for programme planners and policy makers with the intent of developing reflexes and eliciting questions that ensure that communication for development initiatives in rural areas are more inclusive of men and women. "This document is designed to promote the introduction of a gender perspective into communication for development initiatives in rural areas, and suggests practice ways of going about this…The first focuses on key concepts and guidelines relating to gender on the one hand and communication for development on the other, as well as on the synergy between gender and communication for development. The second part focuses on the various stages of a communication initiative, 'revisiting' them from a gender perspective."

• Family Planning, HIV/AIDS & Sexually Transmitted infections (STIs), and Gender Matrix: A Tool for Youth Reproductive Health Programming - a tool developed by the International Youth Foundation for community health workers, managers, and programme planners. This tool addresses reproductive health (RH) needs and promotes the integration of RH and family planning (FP) as critical parts of youth development programming for young men and women between the ages 10 and 24. The topics are the same but the information varies by age, and the tool can be applied in any setting (schools, outreach and peer education programmes, community-based youth services, or youth-friendly clinics). "The matrix can assist technical experts, programme managers, health providers, peer educators, and others to determine what topics and interventions best fit into their own respective programmes while taking cultural paradigms into consideration."

• Gender-Sensitive Indicators for Media: Framework of Indicators to Gauge Sensitivity in Media Operations and Content

• It's All One Curriculum: Guidelines and Activities for a Unified approach to Sexuality, Gender, HIV, and Human Rights Education

Projects -

• Engaging Men and Boys in Gender Equality and Health, produced by Promundo for programme managers in Latin America. This toolkit was designed to provide strategies and lessons learned for engaging men and boys on issues such as dexual and reproductive health; maternal, newborn and child health; fatherhood; HIV and AIDS; gender-based violence; and advocacy and policy. Tools and activities from around the world included here can be adapted by other organisations. The toolkit is available in Spanish and English.

• GREAT Toolkit - a toolkit produced by the Gender Roles, Equality and Transformations (GREAT) Project to improve gender equity and reproductive health in northern Uganda. This organisation uses "radio drama, community mobilisation, and small group discussions to promote dialogue among adolescents, with the goal of facilitating the formation of gender equitable norms and the adoption of attitudes and behaviours" to influence positive health outcomes among boys and girls from 10-29. The toolkit includes materials for use with small groups: activity cards, fact cards, flipbooks, game instructions, and question cards, and a guide that accompanies a yearlong radio serial drama.

• Service Guideline for Gender Sensitivity and Safety