Country of Residence
Nigeria
Age
19
Project title
Boys Leading Change
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
We are building a school-based civic leadership model that brings boys together to identify problems in their communities, research and defend solutions, lead Community Action Projects, and create pathways for younger students to continue the work.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Scaling (We’re expanding impact to new locations or in new and innovative ways)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
My “aha” moment started in secondary school. I attended a government school where I saw organisations come in to support students, but much of the attention was directed towards girls. I understood why that support mattered, but I also saw boys dealing with their own challenges, including peer pressure, violence, unhealthy ideas about masculinity and cult related clashes. Our culture often taught boys to keep difficult things to themselves, yet there were few spaces intentionally asking what boys were experiencing or what they thought could change. That experience stayed with me and eventually led me to start For My Boys Initiative. But working with boys made me realise that support alone was not enough. I wanted to know what would happen if boys were trusted to take responsibility for problems around them. I began imagining boys identifying an issue affecting their school or community, researching it, speaking to people affected, finding potential partners, developing a solution and then standing before adults to defend why their idea deserved support. That was when Boys Leading Change began to take shape. I realised boys could be more than participants in programmes designed for them. They could investigate problems, lead solutions and create change in the communities they are part of.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Many boys in Nigerian secondary schools grow up with limited opportunities to participate meaningfully in decisions about the problems affecting their schools and communities. They are often expected to follow instructions, perform academically and avoid trouble, while difficult conversations about violence, peer pressure, bullying, masculinity and other social issues are handled mainly by adults. Boys may experience these problems closely, but they are rarely given structured opportunities to investigate them, propose solutions and take responsibility for creating change. I have seen this gap from both sides. As a student, I saw organisations come into schools to address important issues, but boys were often not the focus. Through my work with boys, I have also seen that they have ideas about what is happening around them, but need the structure, skills and trust to turn those ideas into action. The problem is bigger than giving boys another leadership workshop. When young people are excluded from solving problems that affect them, schools lose an important source of insight and initiative. I want to help create a model where boys can listen to their communities, investigate problems, work with others, develop practical responses and take responsibility for what happens next. The boys growing up in these communities should should have a role in shaping them.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
We are creating a school-based civic leadership model for 35 senior secondary school boys across five schools in Abuja, with seven boys forming a team in each school. Each team will identify one problem affecting their school or surrounding community. The boys could choose issues such as bullying, school safety, violence, poor learning conditions, environmental problems, barriers to education, or youth mental health and suicide prevention. They will research the issue, speak with people affected, gather evidence and identify relevant community leaders, organisations or institutions that could help address it. The team will then develop a Community Action Project based on its findings. Their proposal must explain the problem and evidence, proposed solution, activities, beneficiaries, potential partners, budget, expected results, measurement plan, safeguarding considerations and how the project can continue. The seven boys will present and defend their proposal before For My Boys Initiative. They must explain why the problem matters, why their solution is feasible, who needs to be involved and how they will measure the results. FMBI will select projects based on evidence, community relevance, feasibility, partnerships, potential impact and sustainability. Selected teams will receive implementation support and work with a teacher focal person and relevant community partners. The boys will lead implementation, document their activities and measure their results. Before the programme ends, each team will create a handover plan so younger students can continue the project. FMBI will follow up after implementation to track progress.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
Boys Leading Change is a model we have already implemented with junior secondary school boys, and the results have gone beyond participation. We worked with 42 boys across seven schools, forming teams of seven boys in each school. Together, the boys developed and implemented different initiatives based on issues they identified themselves, reaching over 200 people directly and indirectly. Their projects included Readers to Leaders, where boys created a reading team that encouraged other students to read through an engaging read-and-play format; Book and Ball, which combined reading with sports; and B Clean, where boys produced and distributed liquid soap to 50 women in a local community. Other teams worked on environmental action, including tree planting, and developed school-based projects that responded to needs they had identified. The most important impact was that the boys moved from being participants to becoming people who could identify a problem, develop an idea, organise others and carry it out. They were making decisions about issues that affected people around them and seeing those ideas become action. We are now taking this experience into senior secondary schools, where boys will have more responsibility for research, community engagement, partnerships, project planning, implementation and measurement. This time, older boys will lead deeper civic action.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Most school leadership programmes teach young people leadership through workshops, discussions and assigned activities. Boys Leading Change takes a different approach. We do not give boys a problem to solve or a project to implement,We give them a process for finding the problem themselves and developing a response. The boys move through a clear pathway of Listen, Investigate, Propose, Defend, Act, Measure and Sustain. They identify an issue, research it, speak to people affected, engage relevant leaders or organisations, identify potential partners and develop a solution based on what they have learned. The boys are not given a project to carry out after a training session. They have to earn the opportunity to implement their own idea. Before FMBI supports a project, the team must show us what the problem is, what evidence they found, who they spoke to, who needs to be involved, how much the project will cost, what they expect to change and how they will measure it. They must then defend the proposal before FMBI. The adults are not deciding the solution for them. The boys have to make the case for their own solution. The second innovation is continuity. Every project must include a handover plan for younger students. A teacher focal person remains connected to the work, while the first cohort becomes part of an alumni pathway. This means a successful project can continue beyond the boys who started it instead of ending when the programme ends. We are applying this model specifically to boys in senior secondary schools, building on our previous experience with junior secondary school boys. The innovation is the combination of youth-led problem identification, proposal defense, community implementation and intergenerational handover in one school-based model.
How many people are on your team?
5
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Our five-person core team includes the Executive Director, Programme Director, Communications and Media Lead, General and Financial Secretary, and MEL Lead. Each leads their area and coordinates a group of our 15 volunteers who support programme delivery, communications, monitoring, logistics and outreach. We share leadership through regular team meetings, delegated responsibilities and joint decisions, with each lead accountable for their workstream.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Over the next year, we will strengthen and replicate Boys Leading Change at the senior secondary school level. Our previous work with junior secondary school boys showed us that when boys are trusted to identify problems and develop their own projects, they can produce practical responses. We now want to create this opportunity for older boys with greater responsibility for research, partnerships, implementation and measurement. Our first step will be to build partnerships with relevant education authorities, particularly the FCT Secondary Education Board, to identify and engage five senior secondary schools in Abuja. We will also approach potential sponsors, organisations and community partners who can provide financial, technical or implementation support. We will select 35 boys and organise them into five school teams of seven. Through structured sessions, each team will identify a community problem, research it, develop and defend a solution, and implement a Community Action Project with support from FMBI, a teacher focal person and relevant partners. After implementation, we will document the projects and measure their results. We will use the lessons from the first senior secondary cohort to strengthen the model, develop an alumni pathway and create a framework that can be replicated in more secondary schools across Abuja and eventually other parts of Nigeria.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
We encourage people to engage by helping them understand why boys’ education and wellbeing matter to the whole community. Boys and girls grow up in the same society, and both need opportunities to learn, participate and contribute. We start these conversations through our school programmes, where boys, teachers and school communities discuss issues affecting boys and explore solutions. We also use social media to share what we are learning, highlight challenges affecting boys and show the solutions boys are creating. Our educational content, stories, project updates and campaigns help people understand why boys need intentional attention and support. We bring others into the work through volunteers, teachers, schools, organisations and community partners. Volunteers support our programmes, outreach, communications and monitoring, while teachers create space for boys to participate. We also approach organisations and potential partners to support our work. So far, our programmes have directly reached over 970 boys and indirectly reached more than 2,100 people. Through Boys Leading Change, 35 senior secondary school boys will investigate community problems and share what they learn through their schools, projects and documentation. Our goal is to make boys’ education a conversation people understand, participate in and carry forward.
