“I am grateful to my wife, Colline, who introduced the GALS methodology to me. Initially, I thought that my wife was solely responsible for the work within the household. The GALS methodology has enabled me to understand and acknowledge the importance of participating in care and domestic work as well as paid work,” Benard Okello.
In February 2020, Colline Okello received training on how to integrate the Gender Action Learning System (GALS) methodology in planning for households. She later introduced the methodology to her husband, Benard Okello.
“I explained GALS to my husband and emphasized that it is a gender sensitive household methodology which encourages women and men to share responsibilities at home. He appreciated and embraced the methodology because it brings transformation to the family. Since then, there has been significant change in the distribution of the work in our home. On many occasions for example, I ride the motorcycle to the hardware shop to buy cement and other materials for the construction our residential house while my husband takes care of the animals,” said Colline.
In their vision road journey, Colline and Benard are working together to upgrade their community training center for soft skills into a fully registered vocational training center, furnish their residential house, expand their retail shop into a whole sale enterprise, expand their farm land, plant more trees, produce improved variety of maize, and buy a car to support transportation of their farm produce.
“We use the Vision Road Journey to project what we intend to achieve as a family, understand our current situation, and to reflect on our past experiences. This tool also enables us to explore the opportunities that will help us achieve our vision, and the challenges that we may face along the way,” said Colline. Colline and Benard also use the Gender Balance Tree to analyze the paid and unpaid responsibilities of each family member.
While the couple has registered a number of successes using the GALS methodology, they have been faced with some challenges including people’s perceptions that women cannot actively make decisions in the house or plan for their families.
“We look forward to being role models from whom other couples can learn how to jointly plan for their families, share responsibilities, and develop together.