Webinar objectives
The webinar served as a stepping stone in the launch of the Working Group on Fatherhood, and as its main objectives the webinar sought to:
• Elevate the work on fatherhood and male engagement in parenting being developed by various partners in Latin America, Europe, and Africa
• Create shared alignment of all invited partners to establish international collaboration
• Highlight advocacy work needed to encourage father's involvement in caregiving
Some activties of the Working Group on Fatherhood included:
• Identification of possible participants for a technical help chat on fatherhood and for the working group
• Establish an annual webinar on fatherhood
• Development of global report on fatherhood and caregiving
The event featured speakers presenting in English and Spanish with simultaneous translation.
Moderators & speakers
Miguel Fontes, Executive Diretor, PROMUNDO
Miguel Fontes has experience in the development and impact assessment of Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs. He is the founder of PROMUNDO, one of the leading organizations in men's involvement in fatherhood and early childhood care around the world. His field of expertise is the development of sustainability strategies in Latin America and the United States. He holds a degree in Business Administration from Universidade Católica de Brasília, a master's degree in International Relations and a doctorate in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.
Elizabeth Lule, Executive Director, ECDAN
Elizabeth Lule has devoted her career to strengthening global commitments and programs addressing the needs of women, adolescents, children, and infants. Before joining ECDAN, she served as a senior consultant with the World Bank Group supporting the Global Financing Facility for Every Woman and Every Child. She worked previously at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as their Director of Family Planning and at Pathfinder International as their Regional Vice President for Sub-Saharan Africa. She has a joint advanced degree in Medical Demography from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the London School of Economics.
Douglas Antonio Mendoza Urrutia, MenCare Latin America
Douglas Mendoza has 25 years of experience promoting new relationships between men and women, between adults, children, adolescents, young people, contributing to prevent violence in the family from a gender perspective, masculinities, children's rights, youth. He is the co-founder of the MenEngage alliance, for almost 10 years he was co-coordinator of the MenEngage Network for Latin America. He has extensive experience in advising networks of masculinities, facilitating men's groups to transform masculinities, activist for social justice and equality movements in Nicaragua and the Latin American region in general, participating in advocacy initiatives aimed at ending violence against girls, boys, women. Douglas holds a Master's Degree in Social Management: Social Policies and Programs from UCA - Nicaragua.
Dr. Richard Fletcher, Associate Professor, University of Newcastle
Richard Fletcher is Associate Professor in the Family Action Centre, Faculty of Health and Medicine, The University of Newcastle, NSW. Richard’s expertise includes the design and conduct of research into fathers' role in families across diverse settings such as separated parents, new fathers, antenatal support, rough and tumble play with children, Aboriginal fathers and fathers using the web. Richard’s book “The Dad Factor: How the Father-Baby Bond Helps a Child for Life” (Finch 2011) has been translated into 5 languages. He is editor of the Fatherhood Research Bulletin.
Dr. Kyle Pruett, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University, Child Study Center
Dr. Kyle Pruett is a clinical Professor of Psychiatry at both the Child Study Center and the School of Nursing at the Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Pruett conducted the USA’s only long-term study of the impact on children of primary caretaking fathers. He has also been in the private practice of child psychiatry for 4 decades. Author of several award-winning books, he also writes a blog for Psychology Today called ‘Once Upon a Child’. He hosted his own Lifetime Television series, 'Your Child Six to Twelve with Dr. Kyle Pruett'. He is past-president of Zero to Three: The National Center for Infants, Toddlers and their Families, and a past member of the Sesame Workshop Board of Directors. Dr. Pruett is featured in the award-winning Zero to Three Podcast series 'Little Kids, Big Questions', the Goddard Schools ‘Parenting in Five” series, and the Johnson and Johnson video, 'Distinctly Dad: Rewards of a father's love'.
Shekufeh Zonji, Global Technical Lead, ECDAN
Shekufeh Zonji provides technical leadership to ECDAN and spearheads key knowledge, learning, and strategic partnership initiatives for the network. She brings her extensive experience built over fifteen years in global Early Childhood Development within the sectors of Education, Child Protection, and Health to the role. She has worked on critical challenges to the well-being of young children across Latin America, East Africa, and South Asia. In Bangladesh, she designed innovative ECD models for a range of vulnerable contexts including urban slums, garment factories, tea estates, and fragile flood-prone communities. She speaks eight languages and completed her education at McMaster University in Canada in Biology and Psychology, specializing in cognitive science and neuroscience.
Luciano Ramos, Senior Programs Consultant, PROMUNDO
Luciano Ramos is a Senior Consultant at Promundo. With experience in education around gender and sexuality, including the masculinities approach. He has been coordinating projects at Promundo related to these issues since 2018. Luciano's advocacy experience includes serving as a Counselor for the Rights of the Child and Adolescent in Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro, and for the National Movement Family and Community Pro-Coexistence of Children and Adolescents. He graduated as a historian and holds a specialization in Public Policy for Children from the Latin American Center at Harvard University. In 2021, Luciano was named a UNESCO ambassador for positive masculinities in the world.
Dr. Vibian Angwenyi, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Aga Khan University, Institute for Human Development
Dr. Angwenyi is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Institute for Human Development, Aga Khan University. She graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Sociology from Moi University, a Masters in Public Health degree from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her joint doctorate degree in Global health under the Erasmus Mundus Programme Scholarship was pursued at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Netherlands), Barcelona Institute for Global Health (Spain), and the Institute for Tropical Medicine (Antwerp-Belgium). Vibian's research interests and expertise are in early child development, mixed methods research, health systems, and implementation science.
Prof. Hasina Banu Ebrahim, Research Professor, University of South Africa (UNISA)
Hasina Banu Ebrahim is a research professor in the Department of Early Childhood Education at UNISA. She also holds the UNESCO Co-chair in Early Education, Care and Development. She is a rated researcher with the National Research Foundation. Her research coheres around Early Childhood at the Margins with special reference to policy, practice and workforce development. Professor Ebrahim won the 2017 & 2020 UNISA Women in Research Leadership Award . Prof Ebrahim is the convener of the knowledge generation working group in the Early Childhood Cluster in the African Union. She is also part of the working group on ECD educator workforce development in the South Africa Department of Higher Education. She is currently leading projects on ECD workforce sustainability, rights-based child participation and process quality.
Dr. Mihaela Ionescu, Program Director, ISSA
Dr. Mihaela Ionescu is the Program Director in ISSA (the International Step by Step Association) a membership association that connects close to 100 member organizations from 43 countries in Europe and Central Asia, working in the field of early childhood development. She is an early childhood education expert, holding a BA in Education Sciences, a master’s degree in Management and School Administration and a Doctorate in Education Sciences. Currently she coordinates the piloting of the Primokiz approach – a comprehensive approach to early childhood services at city level, in two countries, and co-leading on behalf of ISSA the First Years, First Priority European Campaign promoting comprehensive early childhood development policies across Europe.
Meeting records
Video of the event: https://youtu.be/ZWazM-GeaE0.
