In 2021, No Means No Worldwide (NMNW) established a partnership with Instituto de las Mujeres Regias (IMMR), through the government of the state of Nuevo Léon, Mexico. Implementation of the No Means No program has been targeted in the city of Monterrey, capital of the state of Nuevo Léon, and Mexico’s third-largest city. Two local NGOs, CreeSer and Supera, have been at the forefront of delivering the curriculum to young people. Both the girls and boys curricula are taught entirely in Spanish and mostly within the school system, with CreeSer implementing the girls program and Supera implementing the boys program. In 2022 a a total of 1,093 youth completed the program.
The Instructor Training has also been unique as it is LGBTQ+ inclusive, utilizing a gender inclusive format and directly addressing femicide and kidnappings (read more on page 11 of the NMNW Annual Report 2022).
Monterrey Mayor Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas (center) along with representatives from local partners CreeSer and Supera at the launch event for No es No.
The No Means No program is needed in countries like Mexico where the rates of sexual and gender-based violence are extremely high and where a culture of silence results in many cases going unreported and victims receiving little or no support. Furthermore, the influence of “machismo” reinforces power imbalance between men and women, socializing boys and men to define manhood based on dominance, thereby further perpetuating sexism, misogyny, and violence against women, girls and gender non-conforming people. Our Mexican partners therefore value the No Means No program as it increases the skills of girls in assertiveness, boundary setting, and understanding of their rights, and helps them develop the verbal and physical skills to defend themselves in an attack; and increases gender equitable attitudes of boys, and helps them learn skills to defend equality, avoid violence, ask for consent, and intervene when witnessing or anticipating sexual assault.
This partnership shows tremendous promise of the transformation that can occur when government and civil society collaborate to address social problems, and offers a potential framework that can be replicated across other Latin American countries. Early buy-in from Mayor Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas saw the commitment of resources, both financial and technical, to ensure that the No Means No program took root within the city of Monterrey. This is clearly manifested in the close working relationship between IMMR, CreeSer and Supera to plan and implement the program.
But the program has not been without setbacks. Drought in northern Mexico resulted in a prolonged water shortage in Monterrey which forced the closure of schools from through part of 2022. These were desperate months for the residents of Monterrey and wIth schools closed, the No Means No program had to be halted. When school resumed, implementing partners reported that the original time allocation for modules (i.e. 1-hour) were incompatible with the length of class periods (i.e. 45-minutes). This ‘loss’ of contact hours resulted in many students being unable to graduate, not having received the required minimum 8 contact hours of No Means No instruction.
Despite these challenges, our partners from Mexico continue to represent resilience and a bold commitment to ending sexual and gender-based violence in the city of Monterrey. A pilot program consisting of fifteen 40-minute classes has been developed through collaborative efforts between NMNW, IMMR, CreeSer, and Supera. The adapted 10-hour curriculum can be delivered as either 40-minute or 80-minute classes and includes context-specific adaptations for the boys’ and girls’ programs. This adapted program should allow youth to receive more relevant content which should in turn improve the graduation rate and short-term outcomes. And in August 2023, NMNW completed the Trainer Certification Process to increase the capacity of IMMR, CreeSer and Supera, thus further enabling them to sustain and expand their important work in the city of Monterrey.
We continue to be inspired by the work of our partners in Mexico and look forward to continued impact in 2023 and beyond!
