BOTSWANA TO HAVE IT’S INAUGURAL CELEBRATION OF INTERNATIONAL MEN’S DAY THIS YEAR!!!

theme  – “GIVING BOYS THE BEST POSSIBLE START IN LIFE”

    In 2011 Men and Women from more than 50 countries are calling on people around the world to unite and focus on “Giving Boys The Best Possible Start In Life”. Organizers of International Men’s Day (www.international-mens-day.com), which is celebrated annually across the  globe, are inviting individuals and organizations to consider how we can improve the way the world supports boys in the run up to the next International Men’s Day on Saturday 19th November 2011.

Organizers are promising the biggest boys’ weekend the world has ever seen as the worldwide observance of International Men’s Day shares a 48-hour partnership with Universal Children’s Day on Sunday, 20 November 2011 and is endorsed by the United Nations.

International Men’s Day 2011 is asking people around the world to focus on five key challenges that boys all the over the world experience in areas of health, education, family life, violence and life choices and consider how we can all come up with local solutions to the global problems that boys face.

This year, citizens of Botswana are invited to observe and celebrate IMD on November 19.

Geneuvieve Twala, National IMD Coordinator for Botswana said: "Over the years we have observed how our teenagers are embracing change and opportunities available to them now. We have also noted with concern how these opportunities have brought about tremendous societal ills such as drug and alcohol abuse by teenagers with boys being the most affected, the statistics speak for themselves – our Sons need help and solutions NOW! As a society we can choose to look the other way and hope the problem disappears but then you ask yourself – what does the future hold? We need to make changes and better choices in our children’s lives NOW!

Take a moment and imagine what the future of Botswana will look like 25 years from now… will we be;

* a successful society full of responsible and self assured fathers, brothers and uncles?    

 OR

* a society full of drug and alcohol addicts and all the social ills that come as a ripple effect of this?  

As fathers, uncles and brothers it is imperative that each one of us takes action NOW! We have to say NO MORE!!! 

- NO MORE  to drug peddlers who continuously use our innocent kids to fuel their own greedy agendas! 

- NO MORE  to child abusers who are on a Demonic mission to destroy the fiber of our societies – OUR SONS!! 

- NO MORE  to irresponsible fathers who care little about their child’s happiness and well being – TIME FOR CHANGE IS NOW!

- NO MORE  to absent parenting that has now become part of our identity as a society!

  "I appeal to every Man, Son, Daughter, Father, Grandfather, Mother who believes that each one of us can make a difference to join us in making this day a success! We therefore invite all persons and organizations wishing to celebrate this event on November 19 to please contact National Coordinator Geneuvieve Twala on (imdbotswana@gmail.com) for further advice or follow this link for more information about International Men’s Day:

http://www.international-mens-day.com/Botswana.php. "

For International Men's Day we had a Gala Dinner titled “1 moment for Change” to highlight the Men’s potential to grow and the increasing capabilities of men as innovators of society. The dinner  was intended to raise funds to cover six months  music tuition fees for a group of 20 children from the SOS Children’s Village whom we have adopted on our mentoring programme at a cost of P11 989.50 per child.

 

Part of the entertainment was provided by SOS Children’s Village youth whom we have adopted on this project through our Music Mentoring programme.

The programme’s main objective is to enable Youth to learn about music and how it can be effectively delivered. We use music as a common ground and shared interest to develop a relationship with a mentee to support Youth in making significant changes in knowledge, behavior and thinking. Through this process the music is used as a platform to transform the individual musically in order to achieve on music as well as social level.

This project has become a vehicle our Youth use in their journey to build self-esteem and self image. As one of the International Men’s Day values is to help foster youth to unlock their creative identities, our goal is to allow our Youth to share their gifts with peers, family and the community, allowing them to be seen and heard for who they and not how they are perceived. The programme will assist the Youth in development of self–esteem, self expression and the challenges of feeling connected and interacting with the outside world.

Standard Chartered Bank sponsored the dinner, we had invited a range of speakers who are icons in our society, who shared their invaluable experience, insights with our audience. Standard Chartered Bank Acting CEO Mr Michael Wiegand opened the event with stimulating welcome remarks and also shared best practices that Standard Chartered Bank uses to engage their male employ in issues of men, the fact that Standard Chartered Bank is the first company in Botswana to offer paternity leave to their employees says a lot about their brand and their male employees must feel that they truly work for 21st century organization.

Mr Tebogo Sebego, Senior Partner at Sebego & Sharma Attorneys who is also the former chairperson of the Law Society of Botswana gave a keynote speech where he emphasized on how the child protection laws should be improved, how the society play a role in creating a save environment for the future generation of men.

Mrs Tjipo Mothobi, Director, GBC Health South Africa also gave a compelling Special address on business collective effort. Her speech was well received by our audience. The District Commisioner in his closing remarks made an announcement that by end of December he would have convened a meeting with men in the City where they will engage in dialogue on how they can collectively address the issues and challenges men face. He has already laid the groundwork and gotten people mobilized to that effect.

The event was a success for a first effort and the audience were equaly impressed with the way it turned out, the radio stations have been airing programmes that call for debate on men's issues since IMD. All the businesses and stakeholders involved gave a commitment to be part and parcel of the next IMD and we are already working on the strategy for 2012.  Above is a copy of the poem that i wrote and was recited by my 16 year old son which moved the audience in tears. The performance of our Youth Group was outstanding!