Focus shifts to the boy child in campaign spearheaded by head teacher

There has been a lot of interest of late in the plight of the boy child, and perhaps in response to this, 39-year-old Elijah Ngugi Karanja has started the “Save the Boy, Save the Nation” campaign.

Pro-girl child campaigns by women’s groups, churches, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and others intensified in the early 1980s out of the feeling that boys were getting undue advantage.

He recalls that there were more girls than boys in the school where he taught in 2011.

“After some consultation with the head of the Presbyterian Church Men Fellowship in East Africa to find a solution to the problem, the difference ratio narrowed the following year,” he says.

Research he conducted for about three months led Mr Karanja to revealing findings, among them that boys aged 15 to 25 outnumbered girls in mortuaries eight times at any given time.

He established that a good number of the dead boys were shot by police, killed by mobs or lynched for various reasons.

At Pumwani Maternity Hospital, Mr Karanja found that out of every 10 live births, six were girls which pointed to the fact that the survival chances for boys were lower.

From police records, Mr Karanja discovered that society had started experiencing the effects of lacking a strong foundation for the boy child. It was noted that 63 per cent of the youth who commit suicide in our society are from fatherless homes.

He further discovered that 90 per cent of the homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes, as are 85 per cent of children who exhibit behavioural disorders, and a majority of young people in prisons for various crimes.

Another sad revelation that Mr Karanja’s research brought forth was that the number of males in prison in Kenya is seven times higher than that of their female counterparts, a clear indication that their upbringing had problems, including the absence of role models at home.

The Kenya National Association of Probation Officers (KNAPO) found that boys as young as eight abused drugs. The Child Welfare Association (CWA) has established that one in every 15 Kenyan students is abusing drugs or alcohol especially so at the Coast and in Nairobi, Kisumu, Kisii, Mandera, Machakos and in Central region.

KNAPO further states that more than 400,000 students in Kenya’s secondary schools are drug addicts out of whom 16,000 are girls.

CWA adds: “In Nyanza, 50 per cent of men aged 30 to 40 are on (antiretroviral medicine) to manage HIV infections. You can imagine what becomes of them when they use hard drugs,” he says.

Mr Karanja lauds the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) for efforts to fight the two vices in our society, alcohol and drugs.

Says Mr Karanja: “The problem our society has been experiencing is that the boy child has been mistreated but kind of forced to keep silent all along. It is not in our African culture for a boy (symbol of men) to cry or complain all the time when he faces problems. He is supposed to persevere. And that is what he has been doing, a culture that has seen him through a lot of suffering for many years.”

In the cases of children who get sexually abused, according to Mr Karanja, boys are more prone to the vice compared with girls. Sadly, the poor boys either keep it to themselves or carelessly feel heroic about it. Girls, he says, will cry the whole day and make sure they have alerted their parents for action.

Mr Karanja is not alone in this venture. He works closely with Pastor Henry Kihang’a of the African Christian Church and Schools (ACCS), Bishop William Githinji of the Victors Chapel in Karatina, Mwalimu Charles Mathenge, Ms Joyce Wanjiku, Ms Susan Munge and Ms Emma Munyi and John Njihia.

He says the mission of the boy child campaign is “to mobilize, highlight, enlighten and address the plight of the boy child.”

“Objectives of the boy child campaign include mentorship, guidance and counselling to the boy child to boost his morale.

“We are (urging) teachers, religious leaders, education officials, parents and people in authority to build their confidence by talking to them and giving them confidence that they are the future leaders of this great nation.”

Another objective is to provide moral, financial, material, spiritual and mental support to the boy child who is in dire need of help now.

Mr Karanja adds: “It is our duty to counter the negative talk about boys. We must stop associating boys with the use of illicit drugs and other criminal activities detrimental to their young minds. Ours is to use all available means to uplift his self-esteem.”

“We are undergoing teething problems in our endeavour and we have had to raise money from our own pockets to cater for the many activities.”

For example, funds to travel to see what is happening to the boy child in various parts of the country have been quite a challenge.

“There has been resistance from some quarters. There are people who do not believe in a change of mind-set towards boys.”