The Campus Hero Café: Engaging Young Men and Boys in the Promotion of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and the Prevention of Violence in Bangladesh

The proposed research project aims at engaging young men and boys (age 14-21) to educate them on sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) while also contributing to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG). To this aim, young men at different universities in Dhaka, and boys in secondary schools (grade 9-10) in Pabna, Sirajganj, Natore, Rangpur and Coxsbazar districts, will be mobilized through community activism aimed at questioning harmful gender norms, practices and rigid notions of masculinities. To evaluate the intervention, participatory action research will be carried out using Self Reflexive Diaries, a research tool tested during a previous pilot initiative, the Brave Men Campaign. During the first phase of this project, the Campus Hero Café ? a safe learning space for students - will be set up to train selected university students on SRHR. Simultaneously, school teachers and community organizations? volunteers will also be trained on how to facilitate dialogues using the Diaries and mobilize community support for student-led activism to prevent VAWG. In the second phase, the school teachers will facilitate SRHR learning using Diaries in their schools while the community mobilizers will support them to initiate community activism on violence prevention. Finally, selected clippings of the community activism - titled the ?Campus Heroes? - will be telecasted on a Satellite Television Channel and on social network. In the third and final phase, the learning of the initiative will be shared at different levels (local, national, regional and global) with special policy recommendations.