Fathers Matter
Fathers Matter is a new campaign of Heartlines, the Centre for Values Promotion, that uses the power of stories to support the positive and active role of fathers or men in the lives of children.
The Fathers Matter initiative celebrates and supports active, present, and positive fatherhood. Connect groups are an excellent resource to achieve the goals of positive fatherhood.
Fathers Matter Promo Video Clip
A Fathers Matter Connect Group is a group of men who meet on a regular basis to talk, share and support each other.
Start here. Access the course material on the Heartlines website. To use the online courses, one needs to sign up here for free. Otherwise, one can download the pdf versions of the resources and run the groups wherever there is a need. The videos in the modules are available on the Heartlines YouTube page. Step 2: Read through the Facilitator's Toolkit in preparation for starting a group. Step 3: Get together a group of between six to eight men who are willing to go through this process with you. Step 4: Depending on who is in your group, start with either the Christian core module or the more general core module. Step 5: When you've finished the core module, your group can decide together if you would like to continue meeting and choose which module to do next. Modules 2 and 3 will be available in due course.
Connect Group Resources
Facilitators Toolkit
Christian Core Module 1
Lesson 1 Why fathers Matter (See Video Clip)
Lesson 2 Understanding our own father stories (Part 1) (See Video Clip)
Lesson 3 Understanding our own father stories (Part 2) (No Video Clip)
Lesson 4 What is a father? (See Video Clip)
Lesson 5 The father I want to be (See Video Clip)
Catch the films every Saturday from 17 September 2022 on SABC 2 at 8:30pm!
There are six different films in the series, set in various contexts around South Africa. Each short film is a compelling drama that explores the complexities of fatherhood and the relationships people have with their fathers in South Africa today, where most children grow up in homes without their biological fathers. Heartlines have also put together a discussion guide for the films. You can download the discussion guide for churches here. The guide for other groups and organizations will be available shortly.
There are a couple of different ways to watch the films.
The first film will premiere on SABC 2 on 17 September 2022 at 8:30 pm. The next five films will then be aired at the same time on consecutive Saturdays until 22 October 2022.
Each film will be repeated on SABC 2 on the Thursday following its Saturday premiere. The films will also be accessible on the SABC video-on-demand app, TelkomONE (you can download it from any app store or find it online at www.telkomone.tv/en) – which means you can watch them anytime, anywhere, even after they have aired on TV. If you’d like to organise viewings of the films outside of the airing dates, contact the Heartlines team at fathersmatter@heartlines.org.za