So tell me about your life as a boy...
This friend of ours from another NGO was interviewing a participant at an event and I spotted the boy sitting behind them. Boys and men are quite the talk these days.
Boys eventally become men and the best time to work with men is when they are still boys.
The stereotype is that men do not care about children and are not involved in their parenting. There is however something I notice quite often. When I drive to work in Khayelitsha I pass through several neighborhoods on the way. In khayelitsha there is much more life on the streets than the suburbs I grew up in. People walk everywhere and many know each other.
In the estimated population of almost a million in Khayelitsha its easy to understand.
What I have noticed is men walking around with young children male and female.
I am very aware that some folk will immediately suspect something underhand going on, but it mostly seems like an uncle or a brother or a father walking their child to school or home.
Sometimes I stop and speak to them and acknowledge what I see.
The response is usually, yes the mother is working and I can't let my child walk alone.
I am aware that most child abuse happens with a familiar and trusted person. I am also sitting with the pain of this knowledge.
Having said that it's wonderful for me to see men that are , at least superficially, taking care of children in the public eye.
It tells me something is changing for the better.
