What About the Boys? is an innovative project designed to address the problems boys and men face that are behind some of the high rates of crime in SA, including gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF).
The programme goes into schools in rural and underprivileged areas, and having reached about 30,000 boys since inception in July last year, now boasts a movie.
Gauteng schoolboys were recently bussed to the all-VIP Hyde Park Corner Nu Metro cinema and treated to a screening of the film, also called What About the Boys? The moving and upbeat film is also available online.
The What About the Boys? project was initiated by Primestars, registered as a social enterprise for good and headed by CEO Martin Sweet, a former city councillor for Yeoville, and COO Nkosinathi Moshoana.
In 2003, Sweet initiated the Take A Girl-child to Work project with Cell C, which has seen more than 1-million girls being offered a day’s experience at various companies. Sweet, a former lawyer, tells how he once went to a law firm and there met a young female attorney who said she had been brought to the firm as part of the initiative. Then and there she decided to become an attorney, and to work for this firm. It is stories like this that keep the staff at Primestars motivated and cheerfully giving up their free time to the cause.
“Similar to what we were able to accomplish in our previous partnership with Cell C in Take A Girl Child to Work Day, the objective was to create a much-needed boy child movement to support our boys as they are lost, are fatherless, lack access to positive male role models and have a distorted understanding of what it means to be a man,” says Moshoana.
“These and myriad other contributors have led to the violent, lonely, confused, misled, suicidal, vulnerable, substance-abusing population of our boys. By balancing the efforts of developing boys and girls our aim is to get men and boys to become allies to women and girls, and together, fight the scourge of GBVF.”
A crucial part of the programme is developing the learning agenda, he says. “Primestars, led by Martin, together with the academic and GBVF partners, will leverage the annual impact reports to develop a learning agenda which will be a research report outlining the lesson learnt, the state of boys in SA, the biggest challenges they face, key drivers of change and impact, changes in behaviour, and improvement in schools. They will also provide valuable information to the department of basic education to help improve the status at schools.”
The youngsters get a handbook called The Good Men Guide, which has exercises on values and behaviour change in an accessible comic format, as well as online resources such as a helpline, and a mentor — which they call a MENtor. These are volunteers sourced from their sponsor companies and the National Mentorship Movement, who undergo appropriate training in the central aim of “raising a nation of good men”.
Much of the training for the boys is in the form of “edutainment” that takes place in cinemas, with the most entertaining and enjoyable of these exercises being the film What About the Boys?, which was completed last year.
Featuring young stars Tshiamo Molobo, Monique Jacobs and Dean Goldblum, and directed by Rolie Nikiwe — Matatiele (2015), A Place Called Home (2006) and Rhythm City (2007)— it relates the experiences of several high school pupils as they deal with the pressures of home and school as well as prejudice, sexual harassment and violence.
Values and commitments
Through its plot the film offers creative and constructive ways to deal with conflict and after the screening, the boys are asked to sign “the do better pledge”.
It presents a series of commitments such as “I pledge to get to know who I really am, what my values are and how I want to show up in my life”; “I pledge to manage my strong emotions by learning how to meditate and using deep breathing”; “I pledge to honour my feelings, tears, worries and fears and find someone safe to talk to when I need help”; and “I pledge to never insult someone, post photos to embarrass them, or make threats” on social media. It also asks the boys to view girls, women and people from the LGBTQ+ community as “equal to me”, and to speak to others with respect.
Some of the work that went into The Good Men Guide is based on research by Malose Langa, a Wits professor of psychology. For example, the “different kinds of boys” exercise asks learners to choose the qualities they identify with, such as tsotsi boys (fighting means respect, smoking and drinking are naa); cheese boys (I have cash to burn); and academic boys (gangs don’t interest me, I value my education more than anything).
There is also a section on “how to become the Supa Hero of my life” with practical advice on stress signs in the body, how to centre yourself, and steps to take to develop a healthy morning routine. As it is known that anger and violence can result from feeling hurt by someone, there is also a lesson on how to escape the “persecutor/rescuer/victim” cycle.
“The educational booklet is designed to unpack lessons and topics introduced through the film,” says Moshoana. “Stories of characters and protagonists that represent specific lessons are explored through the activities, exercises, messaging and other elements of the booklets. Critical educational scenes are also reintroduced through the booklets (in comic strip style) to re-emphasise key indicators.
“Teachers in participating schools are also equipped to extend the learners engagement further alongside the activities of MENtors and other development partners.”
All of this sounds commendable, but does the training offered by the What About the Boys? programme induce deep and long-lasting change? And how can this be measured? Sweet responded to the question by providing some statistics to substantiate: “By way of example, our pre-assessment data conducted with participating learners showed that:
- 16% of boys agreed with the statement that “there are times when a woman deserves to be beaten”.
- 30% agreed with the statement that “it is OK for a man to hit his girlfriend or wife if she won’t have sex with him”.
- 74% agreed with the statement “a man can have sex with his wife whenever he wants”.
Post-assessments conducted showed that the percentages of those still in agreement had dropped to 2%, 2%, and 18% respectively, he said
The figures after assessment are reason to believe that the programme can bring about a change in attitude: “This is a small sample of the 40 pre- and post-assessment questions, but the change in responses indicates a marked influence on learners’ outlook by the end of the programme and shifts are observed in many of the educational areas focused on via the film and the educational booklet,” he said.
The programme is supported by sponsors: Sasol, the Ford Foundation, Seriti, McDonald’s, Markham, Old Mutual, Absa, GBVF Response Fund 1, Bidvest Services SA, Spar South Rand, Brand SA, South32, EOH, Smollan, TransUnion, Afrika Tikkun, loveLife, Rohlig and Pareto.
The sponsorship amount is negotiable, and the return on investment, says the organisation, includes “leveraging a national multi-stakeholder movement to achieve pillar 2 of the National Strategic Plan; partnering with a proven, credible and scalable development model to tackle GBV; and access to mass reach through the ‘national theatres of learning’ platform”.
The programme has caught on among corporates seeking to allocate their social investment budgets to a cause that is making a difference.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has endorsed the programme and will join the Primestars team at a dinner later this month. In a letter to Sweet last year, the president noted that he had mentioned the programme in the National Assembly “as an example of the important work being done by a range of social partners to change the attitudes and practices that contribute to gender-based violence”.
“Rebuilding our social fabric through building ‘new’ men that respect themselves and women is a fundamental part of what we need to do over the remaining eight years of the National Strategic Plan on GBVF.”
Primestars also partners with various organisations that provide assistance to programme beneficiaries with implementation and collaboration in the GBV sector. These are Umlambo Foundation, Sonke Gender Justice, Young Men Movement, National Mentorship Movement, Father A Nation, Mr SA, BCW, Amatyma, JC Decaux, Joe Public, People Opposing Women Abuse, Tears and ADAPT.
A stated long-term desired outcome of What About the Boys? is to create a “national gender liberation movement freeing all genders from the rigid role of the past towards more flexible roles for our future”. While institutions like Women’s Month remain necessary, it’s clear that involving all of society is essential to address GBVF.
• There will be a screening of the film in September but it is also available on a digital platform. To watch click here.
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