The hope that our existence in this world is also valued.

Since the dawn of democracy, we have had so many developments that somehow sound to be against men.

The popular wave of thinking is that women are being helped to gain economic and social status in the country more than men, as evidenced by the many programmes put in place to achieve such.

The focus for the future seems to be more on developing the female gender than the male one.

With programmes like Take a Girl child to Work, Women empowerment, and so on and so forth, men tend to feel ignored.

Days like Mother’s Day and Women’s Day and the upcoming 16 Days of Activism for no Violence Against Woman and Children, also seem to carry more weight than days attributed to men.

Please don’t get me wrong; I also believe in empowering and protecting women or girls as doing so positively affects their social and economic status– they become able to contribute to a household and the nation and their value immediately increases in the eyes of the family and community and the society at large.

Again the increase in women’s economic and social worth is a stabilising force that can bring balance and prosperity to any nation.

However, I failed to see progress when we only take a girl child to work while leaving out the boy child, as if the boy child is privy to the work environment.

I fail to see progress if we only empower a girl child or women and leave out the boys and men.

We can’t close a gap by opening another.

All the efforts and programmes that are being enacted at the moment for the empowerment of women will be rendered useless if the same is not afforded the male gender.

It’s like we are inflicting a wound which is going to need healing in the not so distant future.

Empowering, educating and liberating women and leaving men out of the picture is simply creating an imbalance in society, which will see women progressing and men being left behind.

At some stage we are going to have a crisis like the one we trying to get out of.

To avoid such, there must be parallel programmes created to educate men and boys about their rights and responsibilities towards women and girls; programmes that empower them economically as well.

Days like today, which is the International Men’s Day, should be used to inspire and empower men so that we could have a truly empowered nation.

There should also be days dedicated to abuse against men as there are men who suffer such in the hands of women.

But whichever way we choose to do it, the point is clear: there must be the overarching lesson that both genders can and must live in harmony and cooperation, rather than conflict and submission.

In so doing, an entire society must endeavour for a secure, empowered and happy future for all.

This year’s International Men’s Day theme is “Keeping Men and Boys safe”.

The nominated target areas are:

• Keeping men and boys safe by tackling male suicide
• Keeping boys safe so they can become tomorrow’s role models
• Tackling our tolerance of violence against men and boys
• Boosting men’s life expectancy by keeping men and boys safe from avoidable illness and death
• Keeping men and boys safe by promoting fathers and male role models
People all over the world are used to relating to men as protectors and providers, but how often do we consider the actions we can all take to protect men and boys from harm and provide them with a safe world where they can thrive and prosper? MM