Eight fathers were awarded yesterday for their exemplary practices that empowered women and children in the rural areas.

Centre for Men and Masculinities Studies (CMMS), a non-government research organisation working to ensure male participation to prevent violence against women and girls since 2012, awarded the fathers who declined the traditional practice of fatherhood and sensitised people about the rights of wives and children, at a programme at Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Building of Dhaka University (DU).

The fathers are Hafez Md Golam Rabbani, Habibur Rahman, Dilip Chandra Das, Baser Molla, Md Delwar Hossain -- all from Rangpur; Md Selim Uddin and Md Nasir from Cox's Bazaar; and Md Nurul Islam from Pabna.

Nahim Razzaq, member of parliamentary standing committee on ministry of youth and sports, and Abigail Fried, programme assistant of Promundo-US, gave away the awards, said a press release.

A seminar was also held where research findings carried out by "Prio Baba Campaign" were disseminated.

Prio Baba Campaign, an action research initiative implemented by CMMS and Promundo-US, has been conducting awareness campaigns in the rural areas of five districts of Bangladesh for the last three years.

With the title "MenCare Bangladesh: Engaging Fathers for Child and Family Well-Being and Gender Transformation" as a part of Promundo-US's global campaign called "MenCare", the campaign involved mostly fathers to sensitise them about family planning, rights of wives and children, and the negative impacts of domestic violence.

This action research is trying to develop and test a community dialogue initiative involving fathers to stop violence in their homes.

Dr Syed Saikh Imtiaz, chairman of the department of women and gender studies of DU and CMMS, shared the research findings and gave an overview of the entire project.

AJM Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan, dean of social science faculty of DU, chaired the event. Sharmin Islam, executive director of CMMS, also spoke.