KATROPA: Empowering men through a movement
In a bid to empower men and advance their role in promoting maternal, child health and responsible parenting, the City Population Office (City PopCom) strengthened the implementation of KAlalakihang Tapat sa Responsibilidad at Obligasyon sa PAmilya (KATROPA) Movement in the 27 Barangays of the city.
“Pillars of home’, aptly describe the importance of a father figure to achieve family balance and well-being. Fact reveals that the emerging current realities and anticipated future trends greatly affect the role of fathers in families and children’s lives nowadays.
KATROPA as a program strives to support men by providing information on important and relevant parenting topics to include; Me as a Man, Me as a Father, Strengthening Marital Relationship, MNCHN/ Family Planning and Protecting My Partner from Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
“KATROPA is a program wherein we are giving men an equal opportunity to express themselves while taking the opportunity to influence them”, Population Officer I, Janet Demonteverde said in an interview.
Focusing on the long-term goal of the program, to increase the men’s involvement in responsible parenthood and family planning, the City PopCom strategized activities to include; congress, reorganizational meetings, seminars and orientations to the 27 barangays since 2017.
“We already saturated the 27 barangays with their organized groups and set of officers. For the last 3 years, one of our major activities is the conduct of congress. In our first KATROPA congress, we invited a medical doctor whose topics focused on male reproductive illnesses. Further, a speaker from the religious sector spoke on the role of a father in parenting. During the second conduct of the congress, the topics revolved on financial literacy and financial management and on the third congress, we tackled more about spirituality”, Demonteverde said.
Every activity aims to shape and introduce the participants to a new perspective on their role, responsibilities and accountabilities while combating the pressure of fatherhood due to massive role-redefining taking place between generations.
“After each conduct of the seminar, we gauge the level of learnings of our participants. We make sure that we receive feedbacks about how we are doing in our efforts to reach our goal to empower them”, Djoanna Duco, one of the KATROPA facilitators said in an interview.
Further, members of the KATROPA were capacitated and challenged to make the change that they want. After series of lectures and forums, they are expected to live on the values of what they learned, to take responsibility for their own health, sexual, and reproductive behavior as well as their social and family roles.
“In 3 years’ time, we cannot exactly gauge the direct impact of the program. But based on the reports and feedbacks we received from our barangay officials, there is a considerable decrease in the cases of violence against women and their children especially in those barangays with active and strengthened KATROPA movement like that of Barangay Paraiso”, Demonteverde said.
Photo credit: City Population Office