Designing Gender-Transformative Programs for the Digital World

What if the digital spaces where boys and men play, learn, and connect could also model care, collaboration, and healthier masculinities?

For much of Equimundo’s history, our work focused on intensive, in-person group education. Those experiences remain powerful, and in many contexts, essential. But in an increasingly digital world, they are no longer sufficient on their own. That is why we have been developing hybrid and digital solutions as part of our Programas strategy to  help bridge this gap and meet boys and men where they are today, while advancing what works to promote gender justice.

Equimundo’s State of American Men 2025 paints a clear picture of the current landscape, including the growing influence of online spaces in shaping men’s identities, relationships, and worldviews. Too often, these spaces reward harm, outrage, and rigid versions of masculinity, pulling boys and men toward content and communities that profit from fear and grievance. But these same digital environments can also hold real promise. They are where young people play, learn, organize, and experiment with who they are. If we are serious about shifting gender norms at scale, we cannot afford to treat the digital world as separate from “real life.” It is a part of real life.

Building Capacity Through Digital Learning and Support

One way we’re advancing this strategic shift is through expanded digital learning and support for the practitioners driving gender-transformative work. We have developed modular, self-paced and open-source online learning courses  that translate decades of evidence into formats that educators, facilitators, policymakers, and practitioners can use in real-world settings. 

At the center of this effort is Equimundo’s Approach to Programs, a foundational course to help practitioners move from evidence to action, emphasizing  practical tools, real-world examples, and flexible application, drawing on Equimundo’s experience and that of partner organizations.

We are also investing in on-demand, practitioner-centered support for the moments people  need it most. Aly, an AI-powered chatbot accessible online and via WhatsApp functions as a digital coach for facilitators, educators, NGOs, and public institutions working with children, boys, men, families, and communities. Designed with a gender-transformative lens, Aly draws on our extensive body of programs, tools, and resources to complement – rather than replace – human judgement or relationships, offering  tailored guidance for  planning and adapting activities, delivering engaging sessions, and responding to challenges as they arise. Looking ahead, we will continue to expand our digital learning offerings with courses based on specific initiatives such as Muchas maneras de ser, a sex education program for 15 to 19 year olds, and new course for preschool teachers in Mexico, focused on early childhood development and fostering inclusive, safe learning environments that we’re co-designing with Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico.

Delivering Programs Through Digital and Hybrid Approaches 

Beyond training practitioners, we are also reimagining how gender-transformative programs themselves can be delivered through digital and hybrid models, addressing persistent challenges related to recruitment and retention in in-person programming.

In Colombia, we worked closely with partners to adapt Programa P, our flagship methodology to engage fathers via WhatsApp. Through extensive co-design, workshopping, and testing with fathers in Bogotá, we developed both hybrid and fully digital versions of the program, guided by a trained human facilitator. The adapted program, Apapachar, has been endorsed by Colombia’s Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF) and is being embedded within the Colombian early-childhood development system.

Recognizing that fully digital programs don’t  fit every context or community, we’ve been  intentionally rethinking where and how digital tools can add value, without replacing the in-person relationships that remain central to our work. As part of this effort, we are refining and testing a Digital Studio toolkit to help program designers and implementers integrate meaningful digital touchpoints in practical, flexible ways at each stage of the program, from recruitment and training to program implementation and evaluation in real time. 

Working Within Online Communities

Our work through Laboratorio Link Up  brings this work directly into the online spaces where boys and men already spend time. Rather than treating online harm as something to  address only after it occurs, we focus on understanding how digital communities function in practice, particularly the roles of moderators, platform norms, and informal leadership in shaping behavior.

Working alongside moderators from some of the largest online communities, we are testing tools and resources within their own Reddit spaces. Together, we have co-developed a framework designed specifically for online spaces which translates familiar concepts such as mental health check-ins, inviting prompts, connection-building, and restorative responses into language that resonates with gamers and deeply online communities.. This approach meets people where they are while promoting healthier interaction and more pro-social norms across digital spaces.

This work reflects a core strategic insight – that change does not happen through content alone, and sustainable impact requires designing for how systems operate in the real world. 

Learning Where Boys Already Are Through Games

Another frontier is digital play, where games shape norms, identities, and relationships at massive scale. 

Last year, we partnered with Next Gen Men to develop Unlock You, a Roblox game designed to explore how we can engage boys within one of today’s most influential cultural spaces.

Our early experiments prioritize design over moralizing or lecturing, exploring how narrative, choice, consequence, and cooperation can surface alternative ways of being. What happens when care, empathy, and collaboration are rewarded? What happens when strength is no longer tied to domination?

Beyond our own game development, we are working directly with gaming companies to provide advisory support through a masculinities lens. This work explores how pro-social tools can be integrated into spaces such as Twitch streams and Discord chats to reduce harm and encourage more inclusive participation. It reflects a growing recognition that healthier digital communities are shaped not by moderation alone, but by intentional design that influences norms, incentives, and interaction.

Looking ahead, one of the most promising frontiers is esports. Competitive, organized esports is attracting a rapidly growing population of boys and young men worldwide forming powerful ecosystems of identity, mentorship, and belonging. By bridging coaching, teamwork, and leadership across physical and digital spaces, esports offers a unique opportunity to model healthier masculinities at scale.

Designing with Care and Accountability

As our digital work expands, so does our responsibility to design with rigor, ethics, and accountability. In many ways digital tools raise the bar. They generate new kinds of data, introduce new ethical questions, and demand greater responsibility. As we experiment, we are also evolving how we measure impact and assess risk.

We are mindful that online spaces can amplify harm as easily as hope.. Digital innovation without values is not progress.

The promise of digital tools is not that they will solve everything. It is that they allow us to design differently meeting boys and men where they are, moving faster without moving carelessly, and connecting individual change to broader cultural shifts.

As we move into the next phase of our work, our Programs team remains committed to experimentation grounded in evidence, partnerships rooted in trust, and solutions designed for the real world, online and offline.

Curious to learn more or explore what we could do together? Contact c.ragonese@equimundo.org