Program Abb (meaning father in Arabic) is a first-of-its-kind initiative aimed at encouraging fathers to play an active role in caring for their young children. It helps both dads and moms with positive parenting, improving family bonds and promoting fair parenting practices. After many years of successfully implementing it, we’ve updated this resource to make it even better. Most importantly, this time Equimundo, ABAAD, and partners have joined hands with the Lebanon Ministry of Social Affairs, who have adopted this program, allowing us to spread its impact further and help families build strong, healthy relationships.
By sharing our insights and successes, we aim to inspire others to replicate these positive changes in their own communities. We hope to spread the message of responsible and caring fatherhood, nurturing a more compassionate, equal world for all.
Though Program Abb-ECD (early childhood development) is adaptable to almost any context, it was created with Lebanon in mind. Program ABB-ECD is the product of a long-standing partnership between Equimundo and ABAAD to achieve gender equality in the Middle East and North Africa region. Prior to this collaboration on men’s caregiving and early childhood development, these partners worked together with other researchers to carry out the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) in Lebanon. The qualitative and quantitative study findings from IMAGES in Lebanon provided the necessary evidence on how men can be engaged to both empower and lift up women as well as inform programs engaging men to build awareness and promote gender equality in both the public and private spheres.
