ADVOCATING FOR MEN’S MENTAL HEALTH
2023’ s International Men’s day is surely set to be a different kind this year. This year, it is all about empowering men in Botswana who indeed do need some bit of empowerment in quite a number of issues.
Having had a successful mothers day event earlier this year, Boitumelo Keoagile, who is the Executive Director of Exquisitely Boity Events Management has taken to embarking on men’s mental issues as they continue to celebrate themselves internationally. She is set to host a men’s conference on Saturday 24th themed “ Men N’ Mind Conference; Overcoming Mental Health Challenges Through Sincere and Honest Conversations.”
“The event is curated to help support our men open up about their mental issues which are more often than not ignored by society despite their eventual negative impact,” stated Boitumelo as she gave an overview of the event.
She also said that the objective is to promote psychological safety and wellbeing of our man in every social setting be it at home, work, gym or any other. It is also curated to challenge the socialisation stereotypes that are hindering a boy child or men to become the best version of themselves.
As black a community we have many limiting beliefs that get cemented on young men which then become foundations of their adult lives and become their limitations. These are common issues such as being driven by unhealthy egos, entitlement, self doubt, low self esteem, insecurities, lack of self awareness, and overall emotional intelligence.
The event seeks to educate men on such issues with various speakers who are experts on such for the overall emotional intelligence empowerment of men for a better and healthier society. The event will mostly be focused of issues of emotional intelligence and soft skills but it also seeks to educate men on money issues as well.
According to Boitumelo, such an event comes having been inspired by many issues of social concern that men are often involved in. Lately in Botswana there has been an escalation in cases of passion killings, gender based violence and other related issues committed by men. These are issues that cannot just be tackled by shallow initiatives.
They require much and in-depth education and empowerment of the male mind. There is a need to let men know that being vulnerable with their emotions and opening up to dig on deep their emotions and psychological depths could be the only way to see to progress in their emotional intellectualism. Once both men and women get empowered then can there be hope for a decrease in these social issues.
Even though such an event is a needed one, it has unfortunately not been met by the warmest of embraces by the society. According to the event organisers, its reception has been quite slow, but that does come as expected given it is something out of the ordinary.
Men are mostly not used to facing their inner and emotional selves or anything that may be “soft” for men to do. In Botswana this kind of issue also does usually come off as a western culture thing with the term “ dilo tsa makgoa” being pasted on them and ultimately ignoring them.
Although that might stand to be the case, the show must go on and will eventually catch on, as it has been seen to be quite a great initiative. It fortunately has been getting some positive reception also from mostly people of faith who think it an important initiative and a worthy event for men to attend for emotional intelligence and empowerment.
kabelo is a writer, photographer and reporter who is passionate about creative writing and aspires to see the local creative industry being a global competitor.
