Dola Nicholas Oluoch, Kenya

Taking a quick look at the last one week that we’ve been together, where experiences from five different continents were shared, under the leadership of two wonderful facilitators from the United States of America, few things quickly come to my mind in terms of lessons learnt:

- The realization that gender is not actually about women.

- The whole mystery surrounding masculinity was unraveled in this one week.

- The whole mystery surrounding femininity was also unraveled.

- The realization that women have for a long time struggled with the load of previous abuses and that this is accompanied by emotions was very key to me.

- The realization that women actually need space to pour out the emotions.

- And the need for me just to listen and not to rush into giving solutions.

The above lessons prompted me into some kind of attitude change. It helped me to start looking at women and the world with different lenses; the so-called ‘gender lenses’.

It is my sincere belief that this is the very first step towards positive transformation with regard to gender issues. In this training I have made a commitment that I am going to work against any forms of gender violence aiming to realize a more equal and just society.

A gender sensitive active non violent man to me is one that understands that women have suffered for long and that their suffering comes with emotions that need to be downloaded somehow. This should be a man that is willing to give space to women and is able to listen without rushing to offer solutions like most of us have done previously.

Finally, a man who is willing and able to be an ally with women and work together for peacebuilding, without hijacking the women’s agenda is a ‘perfect’ gender sensitive active non violent man.