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Good practice Imported

Young Men Initiative — Gender-Transformative Schooling for Boys, Belgrade & the Western Balkans

Serbia · Belgrade · See the Serbia profile · See the Belgrade profile

Evidence: Quasi-experimental Top 67% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

CARE International's school-based gender curriculum reached boys across the Western Balkans and produced gains in gender-equitable attitudes at some sites, but its own evaluators found no consistent evidence that this translated into reduced violence.

~2,500 boys
Boys surveyed pre/post in the pilot evaluation (2007-2010 pilot)
4 of 9 sites
Pilot sites with statistically significant attitude gains
1248 boys
Boys surveyed in the ICRW Phase II evaluation (2014)
Young Men Initiative — Gender-Transformative Schooling for Boys, Belgrade & the Western Balkans

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
CARE International Balkans, with Promundo and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)
Period
2006–2013 (Phases I–II); programme reported still active in 2020
Keywords
education, youth work, gender norms, violence prevention

Context

The Young Men Initiative is CARE International Balkans' school-based, gender-transformative curriculum for adolescent boys (the 'M Manual', adapted from Promundo's Program H), combined with the 'Budi Muško' social-marketing campaign, youth camps and school clubs. Piloted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia from 2007-2010, it later expanded to Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia, with a further phase reported active in 2020.

Results

A quasi-experimental pilot evaluation of roughly 2,500 boys pre- and post-intervention across nine sites found statistically significant gains in gender-equitable attitudes in four of nine sites. A Phase II evaluation by ICRW surveying 1,248 boys in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb and Prishtina found attitude gains on violence, homophobia and gender roles, but the evaluators themselves reported no consistent evidence of behavioural change or reduced violence against peers or partners, noting that homophobia attitudes were largely unmoved and that some sites saw parallel change in control groups, undermining causal attribution.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
CARE International Balkans staff coordinating programme delivery across countries, School-based facilitators delivering the 'M Manual' curriculum, Partner researchers (Promundo, ICRW) conducting formative research and evaluation

Conditions for success

  • School buy-in to deliver curriculum sessions and host school clubs
  • A complementary social-marketing campaign ('Budi Muško') and youth camps to reinforce classroom content

Common failure modes

  • Attitudes toward homophobia were largely unmoved across evaluation rounds
  • Some evaluation sites saw parallel attitude change in control groups, undermining causal attribution
  • Participation relied partly on volunteer self-selection
  • No consistent evidence of attitude gains translating into reduced violence against peers or partners

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding CERV — Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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