DOMAINS OF DELIGHT
NURTURING COMMUNITIES
These are neighbourhoods, peer groups, faith and religious organizations, and online and offline communities that nurture and celebrate sexual and gender diversity, are sex-positive and shame-free and promote the sexual safety of all..
Nurturing communities involves direct work to identify and shift harmful norms that exist in the communities that touch our lives, and to promote sexual well-being for all in these spaces. This includes working with and within religious institutions and with faith and community leaders, and doing advocacy and campaign work.
“… all the programmes I have gone through have increased my passion….for continuing as an activist, for doing work that helps the [LGBTQI+] community.”
(Juma, Tanzania)
DOMAINS OF DELIGHT
01
NURTURING COMMUNITIES
These are neighbourhoods, peer groups, faith and religious organizations, and online and offline communities that nurture and celebrate sexual and gender diversity, are sex-positive and shame-free and promote the sexual safety of all..
Nurturing communities involves direct work to identify and shift harmful norms that exist in the communities that touch our lives, and to promote sexual well-being for all in these spaces. This includes working with and within religious institutions and with faith and community leaders, and doing advocacy and campaign work.
“… all the programmes I have gone through have increased my passion….for continuing as an activist, for doing work that helps the [LGBTQI+] community.”
(Juma, Tanzania)
INTRODUCTION ▸
Nurturing Communities
These are communities that promote the rights of people to enjoy their relationships and sexuality and which advance sexual safety for everyone. Encouraging nurturing communities means identifying and changing the harmful or restrictive sexual and gender norms and values that are prevalent in communities. This includes:
These are communities that promote the rights of people to enjoy their relationships and sexuality and which advance sexual safety for everyone. Encouraging nurturing communities means identifying and changing the harmful or restrictive sexual and gender norms and values that are prevalent in communities. This includes:
- Neighbourhoods
- Villages or towns
- Faith-based communities
- Online communities
- Wider national contexts, where laws and policies can support sexual well-being and safety.
This domain also encompasses the development of advocacy campaigns and groups, which can provide essential support to individuals while also challenging prevailing norms and structures that prevent sexual well-being and gender equity.
Our research in Tanzania and Brazil found limited evidence of communities that nurture gender equity, pleasure and sexual well-being beyond those being developed by our partners TabuTabu and Young and Alive.
However, while women in focus groups in Brazil reported that violence, including at the hands of intimate partners, was commonplace in their neighbourhoods and personal histories, they also described the value of positive and nurturing communities that promote self-love and self-care for women.
Ana Autoestima was highlighted as an example of a project that created supportive communities that helped normalize and encourage self-understanding and self-care as an act of resistance to harmful gender and sexual norms.
Although nurturing communities are not always easy to find, there are good tools out there to help communities and organizations make waves towards this, including:
- the Global Advisory Board (GAB) for Sexual Health and Well-being’s Sexual Pleasure Assessment Tool
- the Knowledge SUCCESS project
- The Well Project
An important principle in this work is asset framing, which highlights the strengths, aspirations and contributions of communities rather than focusing only on challenges or deficits. Narratives can either support or undermine sexual well-being and gender equity: when communities are framed as “at risk” or troubled, their potential is overlooked. By adopting an asset-based approach, organizations can recognize what communities already have, invest in their growth and celebrate the ways they contribute to sexual well-being and gender equity.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE?
What it looks like in practice?
People in nurturing communities:
- Feel safe in the communities they participate in (e.g. work, home, neighbourhood, faith/religious, online groups and platforms).
- Feel recognized in these communities.
- Can identify people like them being celebrated in/by their communities.
- Have the freedom to learn, talk and educate others about gender, sexuality, relationships, sex, rights, pleasure, sexual and reproductive health, power and social norms.
From a report developed by UNICEF on gender transformative programming, we learned that groups and organizations who are part of nurturing communities:
- Households and peer groups feel more freedom to talk and learn about sex and sexual health.
- Communities have mobilized to show greater support for gender equity and sexual well-being.
- Faith-based and religious organizations and faith leaders openly express support for gender equity and sexual rights.
- Local or national advocacy groups actively support people’s sexual rights and freedoms, on an individual level and also more widely through campaigns, awareness-raising and education.
- Online communities offer a safe, welcoming space for all people to discuss, learn about and get support for SRHR.
Take a deep dive into Ana Autoestima
DELIGHT DIAGNOSTIC: ASSESS YOUR PROJECT OR ORGANIZATION
Assess your project or organization
We invite you to reflect on how your organization, project, or programme relates to the four levels of action that can help facilitate nurturing communities:
Increasing individual awareness and capabilities related to the creation and accessibility of nurturing communities;
Advocating for and strengthening policies and legal frameworks that help build and sustain nurturing communities;
Addressing social and cultural norms that influence the creation and accessibility of nurturing communities;
Ensuring that resources—such as education, health services, housing, access to credit, and experiential support like having a voice, safety, and resilience—are available and accessible to enhance the creation and accessibility of nurturing communities.
These areas are facilitators rather than fixed components—nurturing communities can still emerge and thrive even in challenging contexts.
You can think of these areas as waves that reinforce each other, helping to create more caring, equitable, and supportive environments where everyone can flourish.
Below are some prompts you can use to reflect on your work, how it supports the four levels of action, and how sexual joy shows up in your mission, work, or outcomes—like ripples spreading through different areas.
Consider:
- Which communities (online and offline) are you currently working with or in? (organizational framework)
- How would you teach communities about the importance of nurturing communities and how they can contribute to them? (individual awareness of and capabilities)
- What do you already know about these communities when it comes to gender equity and sexual well-being? What else do you need to know? (social norms)
- What gender and sexual norms are prominent in these communities? How do these make inroads or act as barriers to greater gender equity and sexual well-being? (social norms)
- Are there any existing policies, regulations, or community agreements that help (or hinder) the creation of nurturing communities? How could your work contribute to strengthening these frameworks? (policies and legal frameworks)
Review:
- Are resources available and/or used to create nurturing communities or facilitate access to them? (resources)
- What data is available on the norms and beliefs related to sexuality, gender and pleasure in your communities? What research has been conducted already? Does this research explore changes over time? Are there questions that are too difficult to ask? (social norms)
ACTIVITIES
Activity 6.1 Community Mapping
Activity 6.1 Community Mapping
- Give each participant a large piece of paper and different coloured pens.
- Invite participants to draw a map of their community that can include physical structures (e.g. roads, buildings, community and service centres, schools, homes, outdoor areas or parks, farms and fields, places of work, etc.) as well as online spaces that they interact with.
- Invite participants to use their map to chart the locations where they feel empowered, safe, authentic and joyful, and those where they feel unsafe, disempowered and inauthentic. They could use colours, symbols or text to represent this creatively.
- If participants are willing, ask them to share their maps with the rest of the group. Or they may prefer to talk in general terms rather than share their own experiences.
- Prompt discussion about why some spaces feel safe and joyful and others don’t and what participants feel needs to change in their communities.
Open questions to ask:
- Where in your community do people feel safe and free when it comes to gender and sexuality/sexual health?
- What makes us feel safe/free?
- Where is less safe? What are the spaces where we can’t be free? Why is this? What needs to change?
- How could your service/programme increase the number of places where people feel safe to be themselves and to seek support and belonging? How could you help bring about this change?
If you are working online, this activity can be carried out as a discussion.
Activity 6.2 Clarification of Gender and Sexual Norms and Values
Activity 6.2 Clarification of Gender and Sexual Norms and Values
Adapt this activity from Rutgers (https://rutgers.international/resources/rutgers-gta-toolkit-module-1/) to explore gender and sexual norms and beliefs. When running this activity, be careful not to reinforce gender norms and stereotypes.
Choose (or create) statements that reflect popular myths or beliefs in your setting and ensure you are able to offer a critical perspective on any statement that could be harmful or inequitable.
Time: 1 hour
Materials:
- Three note cards or flipcharts
- Value statements written on a flip chart (see Box 1)
- Marker pens
- Tape
- A room or space large enough for people to stand in three separate groups
Step 1. Agree – disagree
- In large letters, write each of the following words on separate flip charts or cards (you can do this in advance of the session or workshop):
- Agree
- Neutral
- Disagree
- Display the flip charts/cards around the room, leaving enough space between them for a group of participants to stand near each one.
- Show the participants the value statements (Box 1), either at the front of the room in large type or on a handout. Ask them to choose five or six statements that are most relevant to the context you’re working in. You may also come up with a few new statements that are relevant to your context.
- Read the first selected statement aloud and ask participants to stand near the flipchart/card that represents their own response to the statement.
- First allow the groups to have an internal discussion about why they are standing with the response they have chosen. Afterwards you can have a broader discussion between the different groups. Allow participants to change their position.
- It is easier being a man than a woman
- Women make better parents than men
- Gay people cannot be parents
- All lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) rights should be equal to the rights of other men and women
- Family planning is a woman’s responsibility
- Abortion is exclusively a women’s issue
- A man is more of a man once he has fathered a child
- Sex is more important to men than to women
- Sex is more important to gay couples than to heterosexual couples
- Lesbian and gay couples have one partner that is more female and one that is more male
- It is okay for a man to have sex outside the marriage as long as his wife does not find out
- A man cannot rape his wife
- Men are smarter than women
- A woman who uses a sex toy is unnatural
- Sex before marriage by a man is not a problem
- Sex before marriage by a woman is a real problem
Step 2. Reflection
Discuss the gender stereotypes, false assumptions and myths that the statements represent. Try to provide examples of how they are damaging to both women/girls and men/boys.
INDICATOR OF SUCCESS
Input indicators
Number of organizations that provide community education and/or awareness-raising programmes that adopt a consciousness-raising approach to enable critical reflection and deliberation of norms and value.
Number of programmes that have been audited using the Global Advisory Board (GAB) for Sexual Health and Well-being’s Sexual Pleasure Assessment Tool , and assessed as inclusive and sex-positive.
Outcome indicators
Number/per cent of community members who report more equitable gender attitudes
Number/per cent of people who report a decrease in stigma or shame around discussing sex, pleasure or SRHR topics
Number/per cent of community leaders (religious, traditional, or political) who publicly support gender equity and comprehensive sexuality education
Number/per cent of young people and LGBTQI+ individuals who report feeling safe and respected in public spaces, schools, or community centres
Number/per cent decrease in reported experiences of discrimination or violence based on gender, sexual orientation, or sexual expression
Number/per cent decrease in community support for harmful practices (e.g., child marriage, “corrective” violence, etc.).
Immerse youself in the other Domains
