Primestars’ journey of raising boys into good men continued on October 21 at Ster-Kinekor at the Rosebank Mall with KwaBhekilanga and East Bank High School’s boys from Alexandra joining what was described as ‘the progressive trip’ towards good masculinity.
The programme is an ongoing venture of Primestars’ endeavour to fight the scourge of gender-based violence in the country, with Alexandra considered one of the epicentres of the pandemic which peaked during the outbreak of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdown.
The What About the Boys initiative was the brainchild of Primestars in answer to numerous programmes that sought to safeguard the girl child from both sexual and physical abuse.
Primestars managing director Martin Sweet launched the initiative, arguing that the root cause of the problem lay in changing the masculinity mindset in boys and endeavouring to raise them away from a mentality of being tough boys to good men with due respect for the opposite sex.
Speaking at the Ster-Kinekor event, McDonald’s South Africa CEO Greg Solomon reminded the boys to always put the power of their masculinity to good use by ensuring they defend, protect and love the women and girls and never abuse them.
“The very reason why you were created with the power of masculinity was simply to defend and protect those of the weaker gender than you in your family, community, country, continent and the world at large,” he said.
Solomon said the ball was in the boys’ court to ensure that the women and girls that birth us are protected for posterity of the human race. We wouldn’t be here today were it not for the women and girls.”
After Solomon’s talk, the boys watched the movie, What About the Boys? and later had mentorship sessions to help build them to become good men.
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