At a time most intervention programmes focus on the wellbeing of the girl child to the detriment of the boy-child, WELEAD, a nonprofit non governmental organisation is indeed a welcome development considering its untiring support for the growth of the boy-child.
As part of activities to mark the International Day of the boy-child, Mrs. Dayo Oladele-Ilori, Founder/Convener, WELEAD, led a team of resource persons to CMS Grammar School, in Akoka, where they carried out different sensitisation programme for teens.
Speaking on the rationale of the one-day training, WELEAD boss said the whole idea is to wean the boy-child away from entitlement mentality and make them responsible men.
The NGO set up in 2017 with over 40 volunteers has worked with over 70 schools in Lagos State, mostly public schools, including correctional centres at Oregun, Ikeja, and still counting, she added.
According to her, what her organisation seeks to achieve is a paradigm shift towards building the boy-child as opposed to focusing mainly on the girl-child. “As boys, they are going to become citizens of the world too, hence the need to bring them up in such a way to appreciate the enormity of the role they would be saddled with later in life. They’re thought about domestic abuse, sexual violence, etc.”
Oladele-Ilori says WELEAD believes that in such a conversation involving the boy-child there are different stakeholders to carry along in order to achieve results. “We are determined to speak with parents, boys, teachers, and so on. Everything we are doing is to start changing peoples’ mindset concerning the boy-child to start influencing the way they think, the way they act so that at the end of the day our society will be less toxic. We will have a more accommodating society. At We Lead, we don’t say gender equality; we say equity so that everybody benefits from society, even the men.”
While noting that it hopes to carry out further workshops and trainings with other education districts in Lagos in September, she however holds the view and very strongly too that if all else works, it will set up a foundation or a trust fund to support boys who want to go back to school rather than learning a trade.
Also speaking on the activities of the NGO, Mr. John Olagbayi Ikuelogbion, VP, Academics, said WELEAD, as the name of the programme goes, engages the students to ensure that they are led the right way.
“How they can focus their lives as a male child. They have come to let the boys know that they can put their potentials in the rightful way. These students were taken on different drills like visioning, etc. it is not only the students that gained, even our staff and the entire school. We had to stop all academic activities just to be able to enjoy the benefit of the programme. To me, I will love programmes like this to be a continuous one. I can tell you that the students fully enjoyed the programme.”
Also sharing his perspective, Leopold Favour, Senior prefect at CMS Grammar School said the programme was quite impactful for the students. “The programme has always been well-organised and very informative for the students. And I realised that the students were calm throughout the programme. The principal and teachers are very impressed with the value and the content we have gotten today and we believe that it will be very useful for the students in the long run.”
On his part, Afolabi Azeez, Assistant Senior Prefect said “It was very interesting, interactive, very engaging and also enlightened the students. I think we will really like there to be more of such training in the future.”