Ezabangoma

26/11/2025

Addressing the relationship between masculinity and Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) from an early age is vital for preventing future harm and building a more equitable society.

​Early Intervention and Education
​The foundation for positive change must be laid in childhood.

For Boys:
Redefining Masculinity
​Teaching boys early on should focus on challenging the harmful aspects of toxic masculinity, which often links male identity to dominance, aggression, emotional stoicism, and control over women.

​Emotional Literacy:
Boys need to be taught that all emotions—sadness, fear, vulnerability, and tenderness—are human and acceptable. Expressing feelings healthily, rather than bottling them up until they explode in anger or violence, is a sign of strength, not weakness.

​Consent and Respect: Education must embed the principles of consent and mutual respect in all interactions, not just sexual ones. This means respecting boundaries, choices, and autonomy.
​Non-Violent Conflict

Resolution:
Boys should learn effective, non-violent ways to manage disagreement and frustration, understanding that violence is never an acceptable solution.

​Empathy and Allyship: Encouraging boys to develop empathy and to be active allies in speaking out against misogyny, sexism, and gender-based violence when they witness it.
​
For Girls:
Empowerment and Voice
​Education for girls is equally important in breaking the cycle of GBVF by fostering self-worth and autonomy.

​Self-Worth and Boundaries: Girls need to be taught their inherent value and the right to establish and firmly maintain personal boundaries.

​Finding a Voice: Encouraging girls to use their voices to challenge disrespect, report harm, and advocate for themselves and others.

​Autonomy:
Reinforcing their right to make decisions about their bodies, relationships, and futures without fear of coercion or violence.

Societal and Family Role Models:
​Children learn primarily from observation. Today's boys will become tomorrow's men and will shape the culture of the next generation.

​Modeling Healthy Relationships: Parents and caregivers must actively model healthy, respectful, and egalitarian relationships where responsibilities are shared, and conflicts are resolved peacefully.

​Challenging Misogyny: Adults need to be vigilant in challenging and correcting sexist jokes, derogatory comments about women, and gender stereotypes (e.g., "boys don't cry," "girls are better at cleaning") within their homes and communities.

​Fatherhood as Nurturing: Normalizing and celebrating men's roles in caregiving, nurturing, and emotional support is critical. This reframes a man's worth around responsibility and compassion, rather than power and control.

​By addressing the root causes of GBVF—which are often linked to outdated, rigid, and power-focused definitions of masculinity—we can raise a generation of boys who are emotionally intelligent, respectful, and committed to equality, ensuring they are not the next perpetrators but rather the next champions of safety and respect.
Dr Leonora Alberts Vilakazi

26/11/2025

The Necessity of Engaging Men in Gender Justice:
​The movement for gender equality has long been spearheaded by women, but achieving true justice requires the active, conscious participation of men.

​Men's coaching for gender justice recognizes that while patriarchy systematically advantages men, it also imposes profound limitations and harms on them, leading to what is often termed "toxic masculinity." This focused work is necessary to dismantle the system from within and to heal the wounds it inflicts on all genders.
​
Understanding Toxic Masculinity and Its Cost:
​Toxic masculinity refers to the rigid, restrictive set of behaviors and beliefs that traditionally define "being a man"—primarily dominance, aggression, emotional suppression, and aversion to anything deemed feminine. It is distinct from masculinity itself; it is the harmful performance of masculinity driven by the pressure to conform.

​Emotional Suppression:
The cultural mandate for men to be strong and stoic leads to emotional illiteracy.

Men are discouraged from expressing vulnerability, sadness, or fear, which is directly linked to higher rates of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and su***de among men.

​Violence and Risk-Taking:
The association of manhood with aggression and risk-taking contributes to higher rates of incarceration, violence against others, and dangerous health behaviors.

Coaching aims to replace this risk-taking with responsible action and moral courage.

​Imposed Isolation:
The competitive nature of toxic masculinity can lead to a lack of deep, intimate male friendships, increasing isolation. Programs like Positive Masculinity training seek to build empathy and emotional intelligence to foster healthier bonds.
​
The Shift from 'Allyship' to Shared Responsibility
​Historically, the burden of fixing gender inequality has rested on women. Men's coaching aims to shift men from being passive "allies" to being accountable partners and agents of change.

​1. Internalizing the Problem (Personal Reflection)
​The initial focus on personal reflection is crucial.

Men should move beyond viewing gender inequality as women's issue or an HR problem and internalize their own role in perpetuating the system.

This involves critically examining:
​Unearned Privilege: How being a man provides an automatic advantage in pay, promotion, safety, and respect.

​The Power Dynamic: Recognizing that challenging sexism requires voluntarily relinquishing some of the power and control they currently hold, particularly in professional settings and the home (as addressed by Promoting shared responsibility).

​2. Skill-Building for Intervention (Bystander Action)
​It’s not enough for men to agree that sexism is wrong; they must be equipped with the tools to stop it. Bystander intervention training addresses the paralysis men often feel when witnessing a harmful act.

​This training provides clear, practical scripts and techniques that help men overcome the fear of social retribution and safely interrupt misogynistic behavior from their peers (the focus of Challenging harmful behavior). This moves solidarity from a private belief to a public act.

​3. Institutionalizing Change (Leadership and Advocacy)
​True systemic change requires men to use their existing structural power to advocate for equity.

This is the goal of Leadership and advocacy.

​Instead of waiting for diverse candidates to fail, men in leadership must actively sponsor women and marginalized colleagues, ensuring they have visibility and access to career-defining opportunities.

​This also involves championing concrete policies, such as equitable parental leave and pay transparency, ensuring the principles of justice are embedded in the organization's rules, not just its mission statement.

​Global Frameworks for Engagement:
​Initiatives like MenEngage Alliance and MenCare demonstrate that this work is a global necessity, not just a localized corporate training exercise. They emphasize that gender justice must be approached through the lens of human rights .
Dr Leonora Alberts Vilakazi

24/11/2025

The Weight and Wonder of the Invisible Backpack:

​Every person moves through the world shouldering an invisible backpack, a container of existence that defies external scrutiny.

This pack is a dynamic repository, constantly being filled, emptied, and reorganized by the relentless current of time and experience. What others see is the exterior—the composed posture, the professional demeanor, the casual indifference—but what truly dictates the rhythm of our steps is the weight carried within.

​The Stones of Struggle:
The Weight We Conceal
​The image highlights the Stones of Struggle, the dense, unyielding burdens that sink deep into the fabric of the pack. These are the traumas and challenges that often remain unspoken, acting as silent anchors on our progress. They include the heavy, jagged stones of Abuse and Neglect, memories that have eroded trust and left deep grooves of skepticism about the world’s fundamental safety.

We carry the crushing, fractured weight of Loss, a stone carved from the absence of someone or something vital—a shattered heart left by a betrayal, the vacant space of a loved one who departed too soon, or the quiet death of a long-held dream.

​Alongside these acute traumas lie the persistent, dull stones of chronic burdens: the constant drain of Chronic Illness or Disability, which dictates daily negotiations with one’s own body; the sharp anxiety of Powerlessness, the feeling of being buffeted by forces beyond control; and the isolating pressure of unseen Grief. These stones are not static; they shift and grind against one another, sometimes causing sharp, unexpected pain years after they were first placed inside. The struggle lies not just in enduring their weight, but in the effort required to conceal them—to smile through the muscle strain, to speak calmly while the jagged edges are tearing at the lining of one’s inner peace.

​The Feathers of Joy: Moments That Provide Lift
​To prevent the carrier from being permanently bowed, the universe, or perhaps one’s own intentionality, places the Feathers of Joy.

These are the antidotes to the stones, moments of pure, unfiltered happiness or quiet contentment that possess an almost paradoxical lightness and strength.

A feather is a memory of laughter that brought tears to the eyes, a sunset that momentarily erased worry, the unexpected triumph of an achievement earned through sweat and sacrifice, or a simple, perfect cup of coffee on a cold morning.

​The power of these feathers is their ubiquity and their capacity for lift. While the stones demand effort to bear, the feathers offer buoyant relief.

They are not always grand milestones; often, they are the small, overlooked details—the rhythm of a pet’s breathing, the satisfaction of a task completed, the warmth of genuine connection. The art of carrying the invisible backpack is learning to appreciate the cumulative power of these light experiences, allowing their memory to fill the void created by the heavier burdens. Without this counterweight, the backpack would become an unbearable drag, fixing the bearer permanently to the spot of past pain.
​The Tools of Resilience: Mended Straps and Internal Compass

​The backpack is not merely a vessel; it is also a workshop. Inside are the Tools of Resilience, the indispensable mechanisms developed through necessity.

These are not gifts; they are earned—forged in the fires of struggle and honed by self-reflection. Resilience is the spiritual thread used to mend the worn, tearing straps of the backpack after a catastrophic failure. It is the ability to recognize, after dropping the pack entirely in exhaustion, that one has the capacity to hoist it back up and continue.

​These tools manifest as conscious coping strategies: the wisdom gained from past mistakes, the self-awareness to recognize a coming emotional storm, the simple, practiced discipline of deep breathing, or the courage to set necessary boundaries. They include the internal compass of moral clarity and personal values, which prevents the carrier from losing their way in overwhelming darkness. The tools are what transform the passive suffering of carrying the stones into the active skill of balancing the load, ensuring the weight is distributed strategically across the strongest parts of the spirit.

​Notes of Connection and Seeds of Hope:
Fuel for the Journey
​Two final elements complete the pack, providing the purpose and the relational context for the journey. The Notes of Connection are the silent messages from the outside world that validate existence.

These are the acts of kindness received and given, the words of unconditional support from a friend, the shared silence with a family member who simply gets it, and the memory of love offered without expectation.

These notes remind the carrier that the path is shared, and that isolation is a choice, not a mandate. They are evidence that the invisible struggles are not entirely unseen, but recognized, even if obliquely, by fellow travelers.

​Finally, at the very bottom, hidden beneath the heaviest stones and protected by the tools, are the Seeds of Hope. These are the dreams, the goals, and the quiet belief in future possibility.

A seed of hope is the tentative plan for tomorrow, the belief that effort will yield a harvest, or the simple desire to experience joy again. They may seem small, but they are vital, representing potential energy.

If the stones are inertia and the feathers are lift, the seeds are momentum. They are the forward-looking force that prevents the weight of the past from defining the entirety of the present.

​The invisible backpack is the ultimate portrait of humanity: a contradiction of pain and potential, sorrow and strength. To look upon another person is to recognize that they are carrying a similar, uniquely configured collection of weight and wonder.

Understanding this shared burden fosters the empathy, patience, and kindness that are the only true currency of connection on this shared, difficult, and beautiful journey.
Dr Leonora Alberts Vilakazi

21/11/2025

South Africa has declared gender-based violence and femicide a national disaster, amid mounting public pressure and nationwide protests.

20/11/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17mDQNxSVY/

20/11/2025

World Children’s Day 20th November:

Why This Global Checkpoint Demands Urgent Action.
​Every year, World Children’s Day on November 20th marks the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

But this day is far more than a historical anniversary; it is a vital global checkpoint and a loud, urgent call to action for the most vulnerable members of our society: our children.

​1. Championing Equal Opportunities:
​At its core, World Children's Day is about advocating for equal opportunities for every child, no matter where they are born.
It serves as a global reminder that every child deserves a fair start in life—a start that includes health, safety, and the chance to reach their full potential.

​2. Highlighting the Global Crises:
The Data Demands Attention
​The day shines a necessary spotlight on severe global issues that deny children their fundamental rights.

The scale of these problems is staggering:
​Child Labor:

Nearly 138 million children worldwide are engaged in child labor, with about 54 million in hazardous work that directly endangers their health and safety (ILO/UNICEF, 2024).

​Malnutrition:
Malnutrition remains a leading cause of child death globally, linked to approximately half of all child deaths under age five (Our World in Data).

Furthermore, over 150 million children under five were stunted (too short for their age) in 2024, severely hindering their cognitive development (WHO/UNICEF/World Bank).

​3. Acknowledging the Daily Struggles and the South African Reality:
​Issues like Gender-Based Violence (GBV), abuse, human trafficking, bullying, neglect, and depression are struggles children face daily. These battles chip away at a child's dignity, safety, and mental well-being.

​GBV Against Children in South Africa:
The Unacceptable Numbers
​Statistics from South Africa highlight the urgency, particularly regarding violence:

​Rape and Sexual Assault: The per capita rate of r**e among children has been recorded as significantly higher (around 95–103 per 100,000 children) than the rate for the total population (Stats SA).

​Violence in the Home:
One major study found that 49.2% of children experienced violence at home, and 48.0% were exposed to violence in their communities (Richter et al., Birth to Twenty study).

​4. The Critical Role of Interfaith Communities:
​In the fight to protect children, the role of Interfaith organizations is indispensable. Often deeply embedded in local communities, faith-based groups are uniquely positioned to intervene, educate, and provide care.

​The Interfaith community contributes by:
​Moral Authority:
Using their inherent moral and spiritual influence to condemn violence, preach dignity, and challenge harmful cultural norms that perpetuate abuse.

​Frontline Support:
Providing immediate humanitarian aid, running shelters, offering psycho-social support, and managing community feeding schemes that directly address malnutrition and neglect.

​Advocacy and Education: Acting as powerful advocates for children's rights within policy discussions and mobilizing parents and community members to create and maintain GBV-free zones in their places of worship and surrounding neighborhoods.

​5. The Call to Action: Creating GBV-Free Zones

​World Children's Day encourages governments and organizations to take actionable steps toward fulfilling their promises under the CRC.

This includes partnering with civil society and the Interfaith community to allocate resources, enact protective legislation, ensure justice for victims, and create the safe, nurturing environments every child deserves.

​Let's Turn Awareness into Action:
​World Children’s Day is our annual mandate to stop, reflect, and demand better.

It is a day to amplify the voices of children and to commit ourselves—as individuals, communities, and nations—to building a world where every child is safe, educated, respected, and free from fear.
​The future of humanity depends on the protection we offer our children today.
Dr Leonora Alberts Vilakazi

19/11/2025

19/11/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/1FmgwhoVYr/

16 Days of Activism is around the corner.
𝗖𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗰𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗟𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄, 𝗧𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝟮𝟬 𝗡𝗼𝘃, 𝗮𝘁 𝟮𝗽𝗺 𝗮𝘀 𝘄𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟲 𝗗𝗮𝘆𝘀.

19/11/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17RYBn8WaD/

19/11/2025

International Men's Day 19th November 2025 :

Encouraging men and boys to be positive role models, especially in the fight against Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF).

Masculinity:
Actively rejecting harmful patriarchal norms and traditional practices that perpetuate violence and inequality.

​Leading by Example: Demonstrating respect, consent, non-violence, and emotional intelligence in all relationships.

​Speaking Out:
Breaking the silence and holding peers accountable for abusive or sexist behavior.

​Mentorship:
Guiding younger generations of boys to adopt healthy values, responsibility, and balanced gender relations.

​The Critical Role of Interfaith in Men, Boys, and Fathers Matters
​The Interfaith Sector holds a unique and powerful position in addressing issues related to men, boys, fathers, and the prevention of GBVF.

​Moral Authority and Reach: Religious leaders and faith communities possess significant moral authority and an extensive, trusted reach within communities, making them powerful influencers of social norms and behaviors.

​Challenging and Reinterpreting Texts: Interfaith dialogue allows for the critical re-examination of sacred texts and traditions to highlight principles that promote human dignity, non-violence, and gender equality, directly countering interpretations that perpetuate harm.

​Mobilising Men and Boys: Interfaith initiatives are crucial for mobilizing men and boys to become champions for gender equality.

This includes:
​Hosting workshops and dialogues on fatherhood, emotional health, and positive masculinity and GBVF.
​Creating safe, supportive spaces for men to discuss their mental health struggles and vulnerabilities, addressing issues like the high male su***de rate.
​Teaching and promoting healthier lives and balanced family roles.

​Holistic Support:
Faith communities can work collaboratively with civil society and government to provide holistic support, offering counseling, spiritual guidance, and referral to services for both survivors of GBV and perpetrators seeking to change their behavior.

​By unifying their voices and acting on shared values, diverse faith communities can create a transformative impact, fostering a culture of respect, accountability, and safety for everyone.

Dr Leonora Alberts Vilakazi
# FathersMatter



Modules

19/11/2025

🔊Own Your Frequency 🔊:

Your Energy is Sacred
​You are a magnificent conductor of energy, and your life is the symphony it plays. Stop living in reaction to the world and start living in creation from your deepest self.

Your thoughts are not just fleeting ideas; they are active, potent vibrations that build the blueprint of your reality.

​Refuse to be consumed. Do not allow the turbulent seas of others' emotions or the weight of external negativity to dim the fierce, steady light within you.

You are not a vessel for others to dump their debris into. Your light is natural, nurture it! The power to choose peace over panic, clarity over chaos, resides solely in the thoughts you entertain.

​The Art of Self-Mastering
​Set Boundaries, Declare.

Self-Respect:
Not everyone deserves access to your precious, finite energy. Establishing boundaries isn't an act of selfishness; it's a declaration of self-respect. It protects your inner sanctuary, giving you the space to operate at your highest frequency.

​Release and Lighten:
Anger, hurt, and resentment are anchors that weigh down your vibrant spirit. They are not serving you. Practice the powerful act of release. Forgive, let go, and watch your energy lighten, allowing you to soar higher.

​Tune Your Frequency:
Your life is like a radio, and your mood is the station you're tuned to.

Shift the dial instantly with Gratitude. Acknowledging blessings, pausing to hear the sound of birds, or simply taking a deep, centered breath are instant energy elevators.

​Speak Your Truth into Being:
Protect your inner and outer circle with positive affirmations. Let your words build you up, not tear you down. See the good, speak the good, and invite the good.

​You are capable of steering your life, and you are inherently worthy of joy, peace, and abundance. Your energy is your most valuable asset. Guard it, cultivate it, and let it glow!
Dr Leonora Alberts Vilakazi