When John Okafor and Solomon Idowu sat to discuss issues facing the boy child in 2020, little did they realize the magnitude of what their discussion would catalyze. Birthed from the personal experiences of its two founders, Boys Without Borders has emerged as one of the leading NGOs in the country advocating for the boy child. Yet, Okafor and Idowu do not take credit for this, as they prefer to remain behind the scenes, allowing their organization to bask in the well-deserved spotlight. Through community outreaches, podcasts (Borderless, The Podcast), campus networks, and multiple resources, Boys Without Borders is at the forefront of positive change. Since its inception in 2020, the NGO has consistently commemorated the International Day of the Boy Child and hosted numerous essential programs annually. “Boys Without Borders works every day of the year, there’s always something going on,” John Okafor tells me.
In this interview with Culture Custodian, John Okafor, the co-founder of Boys Without Borders shares the organization’s core values, profound insights, and desire to make an impactful difference in the lives of boy children around the world, starting with Nigeria. His words resonate with a deep-rooted passion for empowering and uplifting the often-overlooked demographic, offering a glimpse into the driving force behind this pioneering initiative.
I read your founding story. Why “Boys Without Borders”?
Boys Without Borders started on June 2, 2020, with a conversation between Solomon and I at the University of Ibadan. We didn’t think too much about the name, but we saw some significance in tying the name to whatever we were doing. Boys Without Borders is basically coined from the belief that we are training and reaching out to boys to dream without boundaries, restrictions, societal constraints, or anything that makes them boxed into a place. If they are actually mentored in the right way, there’s no limit to what they can do.
That sounds great, and why do you think boys are restricted?
In terms of restriction, I’m talking about the needs of the boy child that aren’t being attended to. Society has found it hard to accept that the boy child has needs, physical and emotional needs. Emotional needs like saying boys shouldn’t cry, statements like boys should have to be the ones to provide for the home, and expectations from society that burden the boy child.
Your NGO seems to uphold some core values that are uncommon or differ from mainstream norms. Can you share more about the origins of those values?
It’s more from personal experiences. Growing up, when we were in secondary school, we had people come to talk to us about things but we discovered that it’s mainly about the girl child you find NGOs come to schools and they just take the girls in your class and the boys are just left there. We know they need to know about the female reproductive system, but are you telling me the boy child doesn’t have that same need? Because this boy child we’re not paying attention to will meet girls in the future. So you’re arming the girl child with information about herself but boys are left to figure out things themselves. This is why you find rampant cases of boys being perpetrators of major rape cases, because when they should be educated about self-control, sexual abuse, and respect for the female gender. These are things that from childhood boys should be armed with. But instead, we leave him to figure things out. Most of us figured these things out from friends. And 70% of the time, they’re not exactly telling you the truth because they’re also as clueless as you are.
Can you walk me through the process of operating your fundraising campaigns and how you keep track of the funds raised?
We’ve been running most of our funds internally by making our members pay dues monthly. We also had to register the organization as an NGO and open a corporate account. By next month, we’d be turning 4, so let’s say after 3 years, we ran our first public donation campaign. It was a huge success. We were able to get at least 80% of the money we required, which was geared towards the International Day of the Boy Child. But the major running of the organization before this time has been from donors who see what we do and donate. A lot of brands also supported us this year for the day of the boy child, more than ever.
How did Boys Without Borders celebrate International Day of the Boy Child?
We started celebrating the International Day of the Boy Child in 2021. In 2021, we had online discussions and went on school outreaches and some radio stations. In 2022, we had a school outreach and community outreach. In 2023, we went to a particular school but this time, we brought in guest speakers to speak to boys on certain things. This year though, is totally different from the other years. We had the first-ever Ibadan Boys Conference where we had over 150 boys from 7 schools across Ibadan. There was a keynote speaker and more speakers who talked about mental health, a panel session where we had different young men in their fields sharing their stories with these young boys. We also had secondary school oratory contests, with representatives from all 7 schools. They contested for cash prizes and the like. We also had the Chidera Anushiem essay contest for male undergraduates across Nigeria. We had a winner from the University of Nsukka.
Can you share some insights you have gathered in the course of your work?
I think this is a good opportunity to talk about a yearly project we’ve been running since 2020 called Project Boys Talk About It. It’s a project where we anonymously give platforms to men who have been sexually abused. It’s saddening to know that society has not come to terms with the reality that boys get sexually abused just like girls. We’ve trained the boy child boy not to speak up so they don’t call him weak. The typical boy we grew up to know should be strong, shouldn’t show emotions, shouldn’t tell people about situations where he was vulnerable, weak, or taken advantage of or his ego will be bruised. Men who have shared their stories with us of how they were abused and how it’s affecting them now. It’s a whole lot. So documenting these stories has shown me the need to also have government agencies that don’t take these cases lightly but seriously. Because every boy child is still a child, he’s first a child before he’s a boy.
So far, we’ve not had projects set for out-of-school boys, although in the future these are areas where we would focus on. Boys who aren’t in school are more prone to cybercrime when there are no mentors.
What challenges, legal and otherwise, have you faced in the course of your work?
One pivotal challenge would be finances. Like I said we started in 2020, and back then people were surprised that there were organizations for the boy child. It’s a lot to see some brands support us and for us to raise what we were able to. It’s shocking that most of the brands that celebrated International Day of the Girl Child last year didn’t see the need to celebrate the Boy Child. It takes organizations like ours constantly reminding the public that the International Day of the Boy Child is May 16.
There’s also the societal challenge. You go to schools where you want to speak to their boys, and some schools don’t even see the need. Gradually we’re changing the stereotype to make them see the need to pay attention to these boys. This year we invited over 15 schools for the Ibadan boys conference but only 7 schools honored the invites. For now, there are no legal issues, as we’ve already settled registration, taxing, and the rest. So for now there are none.
Are you based only in Ibadan, and what are your plans about having quarters across the country?
In Boys Without Borders, we have our board of trustees, and there we have the directorates — directors for media and comms, sponsorship and partnerships, volunteers engagement and campus networks, finance, etc. Campus networks are another structure for expansion. We’re expanding gradually to other schools in Nigeria. We started in Ui, and we’re almost done with the groundwork in Oau. In the next one or two months, Oau should kickstart operations. Gradually like that, we’ll spread our tentacles across Nigeria through our undergraduate campus network. These networks are more of our foot soldiers, they go on campus outreaches, secondary school outreaches, and community outreaches. Boys Without Borders Ng deals with more cogent matters of the organization just like the International Day of the Boy Child.
Where do you see Boys Without Borders in 10 years?
That’s a big question. In the next 10 years, Boys Without Borders should be the leading organization of boys advocacy. We would have spread our tentacles so wide across the country. When you think of a boy-child organization, we would be the first in mind. We would have also impacted as many boys as possible, who would also be a part of the organization to also train more boys.
