Program · Masculinities
Changing the stories we tell can also change the way we live
At Puntos de Encuentro we work for masculinities that embrace care, question privilege and take responsibility for building equal relationships free of violence. It is sustained work dating back to the 1990s that, in 2025, brought the Men's Story Project to Guatemala and Costa Rica, and that keeps opening conversations throughout 2026 with its videos and new research.
Why it exists
Machismo is not destiny: it is learned, and so it can be unlearned
Violence against women, girls and boys rests on a way of being a man that is imposed as the norm: provider, head of household, strong, a womanizer, without fear or tenderness. Our own studies in Nicaragua document it: one in five men surveyed admitted having used physical or sexual violence against a partner, and half grew up witnessing or experiencing violence in their family of origin.
But the same studies show the opposite too: there are men who, having grown up in the same neighborhoods and families, do not reproduce violence. They share care and housework, resolve conflicts by talking, admit their mistakes and apologize. Their stories teach what protects and what transforms: the example of other men, women who refuse domination, the birth of a daughter or son, and spaces where a different masculinity is validated instead of ridiculed.
From a feminist perspective, working with men is not an end in itself: it is a condition for transforming the power relations that sustain inequality. That is why this program is woven together with the others — with the research that studies how misogynist discourses circulate online today, with the youth media that propose other narratives, and with the accompaniment of organizations that want to change their practices.
Sustained action
Three decades of working with men — not just one partnership
Puntos de Encuentro's work with men and masculinities is a permanent line of work, not an isolated project. These are some of its milestones:
- 1998 · Swimming Against the Current. One of the first Central American studies on men who break with intimate-partner violence, and a reference our later research builds on.
- 2001–2011 · Sexto Sentido and Contracorriente. The television series brought into public conversation male characters who doubt, care and change, and the "We're Different, We're Equal" campaign carried those stories to a generation of young people across the region.
- 2012 · No son cuentos. Life stories of young fathers, published with Nicaragua's Network of Masculinity for Gender Equality.
- 2016–2018 · Binational study Nicaragua–El Salvador. With Promundo (now Equimundo), Centro Bartolomé de las Casas and support from Canada's IDRC: a survey of 1,063 men and a qualitative study of "exemplary" men to understand what prevents violence.
- 2025 · Men's Story Project. A partnership with the Men's Story Project in Guatemala and Costa Rica: training, personal accompaniment, public storytelling and audiovisual production.
- 2026 · The digital manosphere. The first empirical study in El Salvador and Honduras on how manosphere discourses reach young men through short videos and memes, and which alternative narratives are needed.
Each stage feeds the next: what we learn through research guides the training, and what men share in workshops shapes the questions of the next study.
Men's Story Project · 2025
Telling your own life to challenge machismo
In 2025, our strategic partnership with the Men's Story Project — Proyecto Historias de Hombres — brought this commitment to Guatemala and Costa Rica, through two experiences that combined training, personal accompaniment, public storytelling and audiovisual production.
Men from different walks of life shared stories about fatherhood, diversity, vulnerability and transformation, opening conversations that challenge machismo from lived experience. The process combined four components: training, personal accompaniment to build each story, public storytelling before the community, and audiovisual production so the testimonies travel beyond the room.
Today, their voices on YouTube invite other people and communities to recognize that equality is also built by listening, questioning ourselves and changing. Throughout 2026 the videos are being shared on the networks of Puntos de Encuentro and its partners, and are available to organizations across the region that want to use them in their own training processes.
Videos · Costa Rica
Changing the narrative
Three pieces produced with the participants in Costa Rica. YouTube views as of September 2026.
Costa Rica · 108 views
Costa Rica · 412 views
Costa Rica · 217 views
Videos · Guatemala
Men's stories from Guatemala
Two pieces produced with the participants in Guatemala (in Spanish). YouTube views as of September 2026.
Guatemala · 62 views
Guatemala · 56 views
Men's Story Project
What is already circulating
Source: Puntos de Encuentro YouTube channel, September 2026 · Partnership with the Men's Story Project · Training, accompaniment, public storytelling and audiovisual production
How it weaves into the other programs
A thread that runs through the whole weave
- Research. The studies on masculinities and violence in Nicaragua and El Salvador (with Promundo, now Equimundo) and the study on the digital manosphere (2026) provide the evidence on which workshops and messages are designed.
- DKY Digital and Miradas Moradas. Our media produce content on masculinities, fatherhood and violence prevention in the same formats — short video, memes, articles — where manosphere discourses circulate today.
- GenGen. Accompaniment for organizations in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua includes work with young men as part of changing adult-centered and gender practices.
- Integral health. Supporting women who experience violence is complemented by working with men: without changing those who exercise it, the root of the problem remains untouched.
This program is implemented in the region by Asociación Puntos de Encuentro. Fundación Puntos de Encuentro Inc. channels support from donors in the United States to sustain training, audiovisual production and research. If your organization wants to replicate the Men's Story Project or use the videos in its own processes, write to info@fundacionpuntosdeencuentroinc.org.
More videos · Masculinities
Present fatherhood
Short video on fatherhood and care (in Spanish). It opens on YouTube.
Add your thread
Every story told opens a conversation
Your gift brings the Men's Story Project to new countries and produces the videos that make it travel.
Fundación Puntos de Encuentro Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization. Your donation is tax-deductible in the United States.