Boy Child Day Celebrated for the First Time in South Sudan

In South Sudan, the various international NGOs all push for girls and women with a policy of silence about boys and men.  Ever since arriving in South Sudan nearly eight years ago, I have noticed the lack of help for boys, which manifests itself in antisocial behaviour such as gangs, rape and stealing.  There is an increasing problem of street children, who are generally boys.  South Sudan has always had a culture of child soldiers, which is also very detrimental to boys’ development into civilized and educated young men. 

Primary 1 girls and boys
present their pictures

These problems continued during the Covid period last year as there were no activities for boys.  Families tend to neglect their boys as they traditionally see girls as useful for chores and never expect boys to participate.  Various NGOs produced sanitary products for girls, money for girls’ education (in spite of the fact that the schools were all closed) and savings opportunities for women’s groups.  Boys and men were left out completely.  At the same time, robberies, rapes and murders escalated.  Skills training targets mainly young women, rather monotonously with a basic choice of tailoring or catering, but does little or nothing for young men.

Football by Jimmy

Like all other schools in the Nimule area we have participated in the various NGO-led girls activities, but I have become very uncomfortable with excluding our boys.  Various boys have complained about girls receiving cash from an international NGO, while they got nothing.  How could I possibly justify the unjustifiable?

I checked on the internet and found that an enterprising man called Dr Jerome Teelucksingh in Trinidad and Tobago had witnessed a similar phenomenon.  He decided to start World Day of the Boy Child.  This is still a fledgling event but I jumped at it. 

World Day of the Boy Child is supposed to be celebrated on 16^th May, but this clashes with SPLM Day (a public holiday in South Sudan).  We therefore held our first Boy Child Day at school on 17^th May.  

The younger classes drew pictures of boys doing the things that boys like to do (football being the most important).  

The older classes developed a song.  The lyrics are:

We are the great boys of Cece Primary School.
We are the only school in South Sudan 
which has Boy Child Day.
Boys need education, just like girls.
Without education, what will we do?
Boys need money, just like girls.
Please treat us equally, do not divide.

We are not going to stick with one day a year, in the face of so much girls-only campaigning.  We plan to start a weekly Boys Club to support our boys.  It will be run by a pastor from a local church, who has a lot of experience of running youth activities and also in counselling.  I am hoping that they can be guided into positive activities and away from negative peer groups.