Who cares to mentor the younger men today?

Boys lives matter too. Godfrey Kuteesa shares experiences with some of the mentees. He has started an initiative to give young men guidance on how to handle life matters. PHOTOS BY GILL:IAN NANTUME

What you need to know:

  • BOYS MATTER. While girls are taught how to behave as wives and prepared for marriage, boys are expected to just figure it out, writes GILLIAN NANTUME.
  • She explores how society is waking up to the problem.

There are days which are supposed to be celebrated but instead, for some people, they bring distressing memories. Father’s Day is one such day. For a young man whose father is still alive but has neglected his roles, Father’s Day brings about bitter reflections.
For Suleiman Lubega, a 25-year-old plumber, growing up without a father was tough in his teenage years, and as he blossomed into a young man, the absence of a mentor dug deep.
“I joined the gangs where I used to live, but since I have always been a practising Muslim, I never had challenges with alcohol or drug addiction. However, I was addicted to pornography. I watched porn videos all day. I was rescued from the addiction in 2016 when Godfrey Kuteesa began mentoring me.”
Today, Lubega no longer watches pornographic movies. On Father’s Day, he was one of the young men who gathered at the Kuteesa Foundation for the launch of the One Mentor One Son programme.
By 2pm, there are about 35 young men sitting on the upper lawn of the compound. They are from the lower rungs of society and the language of communication is mainly urban and street Luganda.
The speaker, Pat, likens mentoring to investment and one of the men explains that investment is similar to putting a seed in the ground and waiting with hope that you will get something out of it.
“That is right,” Kuteesa says, adding, “The greatest investment you can make in life is to set aside time to be mentored. Give the mentor feedback on what you have talked about, and this will encourage him to go on. You have to create a relationship with him.”
As he talks, Kuteesa mixes Luganda and English, as he moves around the group. He equates the relationship between a mentor and mentee to a time when a young man is wooing a girl. The young man plays hard to get but his goal is to keep the girl around.
“Send the mentor nice messages after your session with him, appreciating him,” Pat advises, continuing, “Always keep your phone switched on. You may think it is wise to switch off your phone to dodge a girl you have made pregnant, but what if your mentor calls during that time?”
Making time to create a better generation
More young men keep coming in through the gate. As they continue with their dialogue, inside the office, the mentors are arriving one by one. This is a voluntary job they are taking on and it is surprising that about 20 of them turn up on a Sunday afternoon.
The mentors are aged between 30-45 years, and they are from different sectors. There are lawyers, communication experts, members of the civil society, business owners, teachers, and government employees. All of them are married.
Kuteesa briefs them about why he sent out a call for mentors on social media. “We already have the Boys Mentorship Programme that takes in boys from the ages of seven to 17 years. That is for people who can pay. But, I wanted to create a programme for youths between 18 and 25. I thought about the girls they were confusing, and the children they had fathered and I realised I had to pool men who are strong with their families, believe in God, and are fathers.”
He explains that if these fatherless young men are not mentored, they become a problem to the nation, because most of the people who have taken part in riots or who belong to gangs terrorising Ugandans are young men.
“Some of these young men have addictions and they need to talk to people who have overcome those addictions. I can tell you about a boy in boarding school who ganged up with his classmates, grabbed a girl and put her in a sack. They began fondling her. Her screams attracted attention and she was rescued. This behaviour could lead to someone participating in gang rape in the future. This is a boy who was brought up by his aunt. He has no father. He is struggling with his identity.”
After the aunt beat up the boy, she got in touch with the Foundation to mentor him. In a mentor, a boy who has never known the love of a father gets someone he can be accountable to. Before he does something, he will stop and wonder what his mentor would think if he knew about his actions.
Since the mentors are busy people, Kuteesa encourages them to take up Mentorship Friday. Every Friday, he takes a group of young men to the Children’s Park in Kamwokya where they meet with their mentors for an hour.

Time to focus on the boy child
The mentorship programme is a welcome innovation in a time when civil society organisations have been focusing on empowering the girl child.
Fortunate Kagumaho, an assistant communications coordinator at Restless Development and one of the mentors, says, “Society has high expectations of men. No one gives boys time so they are being misled by groups and the media. A man cannot talk to anyone about his problems and he cannot cry.”
Kagumaho, who is also a counselling psychologist, admits that people expect men to figure out how to be men and in the quest for manhood, many young men are losing their identity and self-esteem.
“I believe mentoring is much needed, not necessarily to tell the young men what to do, but so they can know that they have someone who is a friend, who to share their problems with, and who they can be accountable to.”
The lack of mentoring in young men becomes evident in the way they behave when they become husbands or in the increasing cases of domestic violence.
Andrew Izaara, an administrator of Spouses’ Nuggets, a Facebook group of 230 married people, says, “When you see a husband’s behaviour, then you know that the problem (of lack of mentoring) has come full circle. I know because I have to deal with it every day. While girls are taught how to behave as wives and prepared for marriage, boys are expected to just figure it out.”
When Izaara was getting married, a kind uncle took him aside and told him that when it comes to marriage, he will figure out what to do.
“My uncle meant well, but that is the only marriage counselling I got. I did not know what to do; I had to make mistakes and find people to teach me. It cost a lot of time and probably offended my wife. While she was prepared to be a wife, I had only basic information.”
Giving himself as an example, Izaara argues that men learn by observing diligent men, “There are no clear definitions of what it means to be a man. Does it mean to provide, to have children, to have a job and high title? What is a man? What is a good man? I really hope that I can hear what my mentee has to say because we all have very unique situations we have gone through.”
Kamara Ariho, the managing director of Nomad Advertising, believes the mentees have all the life choices on the table in front of them.
“There is no new information I can give them. The only thing is to encourage them to make the wiser choice and share personal experiences of the choices that I have made and how they turned out for me so that they do not have to go through that experience.”
Since he was not mentored as a young man, Ariho has deliberately sought out mentors who he believes he can learn something from.
“Right now things are different for young men. We are in an age where there is a high flow of information and so many things competing for their attention. The things that kept us in check have been numbed. You cannot find a young boy on the road and rebuke him for his behaviour nowadays. People do not respect elders.”
He encourages men to take up the role of voluntarily mentoring young men because the only way the next generation can remember them is if they leave something worth remembering behind.

Mentoring is about guidance
After the chat in the office, the mentors move out into the compound and are ready to meet their mentees. Small groups are scattered all over the compound as each mentor takes on two, three, or four young men.
Since this is the launch of the programme, session lasts about an hour and it is all about getting to know each other, setting out expectations, exchanging contacts, and setting up the next appointment.
After the session, one of the mentees, 21-year-old Brian Kasirye, is full of hope. “The first thing I have learnt is that if you are engaged in business, you should not ignore other people just because you have money or waste money on drinking and dancing.”
Kasirye is a petty itinerant trader who engages in electrical wiring when he is in between consignments.
Lubega is also optimistic. “I will get intangible benefits for interacting with these big men. We have spoken about where my mentor has come from in life and I believe he will guide me, counsel me and give me courage.”
As the young men and their mentors begin to leave, there is an air of optimism. The young men are going to benefit immensely from the guidance of their new father figures, while the mentors have got a chance to leave their imprint on the next generation.