Three years ago an idea was born in a small coffee shop in Oslo with three friends. We were disturbed by the fact that violence against men and boys was not on the agenda of many international and national actors working on violence and prevention of thus.

So we founded www.up-international.org.

We said we wanted to do research to count (what you can’t count does’t count…) and identify and learn as much as possible about violence against males, to do advocacy to bring this onto the table and into the agenda of stakeholders, to develop appropriate responses (projects) and to offer consultancy on this topic.

Now three years later we have helped realise several studies, we’re co-funding programs in Chiang Mai, Thailand and starting now in Bangladesh. We aim to do more research, advocate harder and aim higher to have a bigger impact.
It’s rewarding to see what has started small and in countless voluntary hours is slowly growing and new doors opening.