Speaking during the event, Larysa Kobelyanska, Project Coordinator, said in our society responsible parenthood has been almost always connected to motherhood and child care. Moreover, even if it is a commonly admitted fact that fathers have an important role to play, their practical responsibility in raising a child is almost inexistent.
At the same time, the participation of men in the upbringing of children and in the family life provides lots of opportunities for parents. Women can keep up with their work and career while children can experience both mother and father care. And men have a new way for self-realization and for discovering new emotions and different aspects of life.
Today, accordingly to sociological surveys, a Ukrainian father spends an average 4 minutes per day with his child. Only 32% of fathers help their sons and daughters with home work. Furthermore, only 24% of fathers accompany them to school and only 10% stay home to take care of their sick children.
Lack of communication has a negative impact not only on children but also on the father himself. Men who do not fulfill their need for care, communication, parental relations are heading towards anger and emotional emptiness. Psychologists tend to correlate long life expectancy with strong and happy family relations.
For Ukraine, where the gap between male and female life expectancy is 12 years, it is crucial to influence men to build up more harmonious families. These issues together with other problems were raised during the All-Ukrainian School of Responsible Fathering.
The School participants attracted commercial and non-profitable organizations specialised in disseminating the ideas of responsible fathering and gender division of domestic chores, helping and supporting fathers and preparing them for harmonious parenthood. During the forum, 9 regions of Ukraine were represented.
The All-Ukrainian School of Responsible Fathering included discussion sessions as well as master-classes on methods and practical approaches, best-practices and materials sharing. The first to present their achievements were the Uzhgorod centre for children development “Kaleidoscope”. All the participants were invited to a real family celebration “Dad can do everything!” conducted on the river Uzh’s bank. More than 30 families actively participated in different fun and educational competitions: quizzes, races, team-activities for parents and children. The number of proposed activities was very high. Not a single family left the event without a prize.
The event opened a week of festivities before the Father Day celebration. The Father Day is not an official holiday yet. However, the Ukrainian community with the Ministry for family, youth and sport took the initiative to dedicate every third Sunday of September to fathers (19 September this year). Equal Opportunities and Women’s Rights in Ukraine Programme also supported this initiative and prepared “I am proud – I am a father!” flags for the participants of the Father Day not only in Kyiv but also in different Ukrainian regions.
During the All-Ukrainian School of Responsible Fathering, the participants shared their experience. Larysa Perepelytsya from Kharkiv (“Family from A to Z”) organized an interactive lesson “How to change the behaviour of family members?”. Tetyana Shevchenko from Sumy (Informational health center “Harmony”) conducted a master-class of aqua-gym for pregnant women and Yuliya Savelieva (Sumy gender consultation and information agency) explained the specific issues of taking care of new-borns.
Oleksiy Khmara from Kirovograd (“Methodology of harmonious personality development”) conducted a master-class on the creation of Father Schools taking for example his own organization. He presented the “7 steps to create a Father School” that explains the first questions and issues that may arise in the beginning.
A Father School needs 7 elements: a team, comprehension of target audience, programme (methodology), adequate premises, suitable agenda, media spread (public reactions) and a common vision of the organization’s goal. As to the costs, experts assess that to create a Father School one would need UAH 25,000 and it would take one year to make it function to its full potential.
In conclusion, the participants agreed that their first-hand experience, new methods, plans and practices need to be shared and transmitted more efficiently. Therefore, the participants decided to create an All-Ukrainian open network of responsible fathering organization. The newly created network will have three institutions: administrative, methodological and communication bodies.
The participants also had an opportunity to learn new methods of shaping gender culture and education: gender sport orientation. This method was developed by Zakarpattya regional gender education centre. The whole concept is based on a series of sportive and psychological studies which were used in developing itineraries and tasks for this exercise.
Marianna Kolodiy, Head of Zakarpattya regional gender education centre, informed the participants that it's very important to combine different tasks during the competition. Indeed, the exercises and team-work help to confront and eradicate gender stereotypes (women’s place in the team, duty assignments, men and women behaviour during competition etc.). Sport orientation exercises are usually filmed or photographed and than analysed and discussed with the team. Such data provides a lot of materials for sociologists and psychologists to discern different human behaviour.
The participants had an opportunity to experience this sport by themselves. They were divided in 3 teams: male teams, female teams and mixed teams. The itinerary was traced on mountainous terrain and counted 10 bases with specific exercises developed by psychologists. The tasks and their completion confirmed that even gender experts often fall for gender stereotypes.
Judges observed the participants and noted that male and female teams were trying to keep up the same pace. In mixed teams men had the tendency to take the lead and to start tasks without waiting for their female team-members. The best result was recorded by a mixed team (40 minutes).
The participants hailed this new method and stressed its originality. The results obtained during the competition provide interesting material for further analysis and understanding of gender stereotypes. This gender education method deserves wider distribution across Ukraine. The participants agreed to present it during the All-Ukrainian education forum planned for this October.
For more information, contact Mykola Yabchenko (Equal Opportunities and Women’s Rights in Ukraine Programme): +38 067 290 55 01, +38 044 569 40 75, .
Source: United Nations Development Programme
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