Gender Transformation for Health: A Participatory Toolkit

Designed for use especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), this resource aims to provide health workers and health managers with knowledge and skills to provide high-quality, gender-sensitive, and transformative services to individuals and couples, including females, males, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) clients. It includes 9 modules with participatory sessions that cover the following topics:

• Gender and Social Norms
• Gender-Based Violence
• Gender as a Health Determinant
• Sexuality and Sexual Diversity
• Responding to Sexuality and Sexual Diversity in a Health Facility
• Gender-Sensitive and Rights-Based Care
• Gender Analysis
• Couples Counseling Skills
• Male-Friendly Services

Sessions present situations and problems, and participants are facilitated to come up with creative solutions together. This participatory approach does not entail a trainer passing on knowledge to passive learners; rather, participants are actively engaged by the facilitator and each other. This approach recognises participants as thinking, creative individuals with the capacity for action, who bring their own unique experiences and realities to the learning environment.

Each session is formatted as follows:

• Learning objectives of the session
• Time required for the session
• Materials needed for the session
• Advance preparation the facilitator will need to complete before leading a session
• Steps for leading the session
• Facilitator notes on the session process and important points to be made during the session
• Participant handouts that may be given out during or at the end of the session
• Facilitator resources needed to lead the session