Henry Bindu, founder and chief executive of the Real Men Talk show, says society must not neglect boys as it seeks to empower and protect the girl child.
Bindu (HB), who is also the owner of Extreme Fitness Total Body Gym, told Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube (TN) on the platform In Conversation with Trevor that boys and men also need safe spaces to deal with issues affecting them.
Below are excerpts from the interview.
TN: Henry Bindu, welcome to In Conversation With Trevor.
HB: Thank you Trevor. I am humbled hahaha.
TN: Henry, you invited me to come and talk at your event, Real Men Talk, and I was touched by the fact that there is somebody in our society who cares about fathers and sons getting together and talking because that father and son relationship to me is the basis upon which societies are formed.
HB: True.
TN: It is one of the key foundational relationships I think. So thank you so much for that work that you are doing.
HB: Thank you Trevor. It was really nice of you to come and be part of that show...
TN: Wonderful.
HB: When you came and spoke people were just amazed.
I even say to you, I know Trevor or I knew Trevor from the headlines and everything else, but when you shared about Trevor that was amazing.
TN: Thank you.
HB: So thank you.
TN: Thank you so much Henry.
So, you are the founder and chief executive officer of Real Men Talk, and I said to myself this is a very unusual space.
What made you start Real Men Talk?
HB: You know Trevor that was... Actually it is something which just came into me to be honest.
Sitting and talking to my wife, and I have always been passionate about helping people, just trying to make a change in life, hence the other things I do.
But I thought we are lacking as a society, especially here in Zimbabwe, we are focusing on the girl child, which is good, do not get me wrong, we need to do that.
But as we focus on the girl child what are we doing about the boy child?
At the end of the day I think we are having a half-baked cake, once we have that cultured girl child who is confident in everything, and then she is going to need to marry even the boy child who is half baked.
So what are we doing; his fathers?
TN: Had you seen anything in particular Henry that made you say, 'What is happening with the boy child?'
HB: True. Actually it started with a man.
We had incidences where men were committing a lot of suicides, and [I] started looking into that what is going on with men?
TN: Right.
HB: Yeah. What is happening with us?
So that is when I found out that as men if we are not doing something about it as men then what are we teaching the boy child?
TN: Right.
HB: Because it is just going to escalate.
TN: Right.
HB: Yeah.
TN: Tell me, when you have these meetings what issues is the boy child dealing with?
HB: We have got a lot of issues.
TN: What are those issues? Let us unpack them?
HB: Well, drug abuse.
TN: Right.
HB: Yeah. The issue of I think confidence yeah. You know Trevor, as I was doing this just to side track a bit...
TN: Sure.
HB: I had an interview on radio, and then one gentleman called me after the interview and said to me I am so happy that you were speaking about this on radio.
My son has been coming to me and saying that I think I need some counselling and they have been telling this boy that you know what you are; a man, you do not need counselling, just man up and go with it.
So you see there is a problem, and we are lacking a lot as men, we are not listening to the boy child.
We are not taking time to groom the boy child.
They have as much issues as we do have as grown-up men. I think actually us men we have a whole lot more of it.
TN: Shall we go there? Because your organisation is called Real Men Talk, and the father and son sessions, the conference that you invited me to last year is part of it.
What are the issues that we men are dealing with? Issues that we are unable to share, issues where we need mentoring and counselling?
HB: Our biggest challenge or the biggest thing we're dealing with is men is our ego.
So through that we are failing to appreciate and realise that we have got problems as men that we need to be working on.
We are failing to be our own brother’s keepers. We are failing to help, you know as a man you are not supposed to be feared even when it comes to the household.
There is this thing about black men being feared that you are the father, the father is here and everyone else you know they go down.
But as a man you are supposed to be compassionate, you are supposed to be loving, you are supposed to be grooming.
So even as we talk about the girl child or women empowerment, we should not be threatened by all that.
We are supposed to be supporting and encouraging.
Once we check our ego at the door, and understand that you are supposed to talk, let us make time to talk as men, let us come together and share.
I understand it is challenging to do that as a man.
One, I am coming to Trevor, Trevor these are my issues.
Trevor is going to be saying this big guy he goes to the gym...
TN: And yet he is dealing with these issues hahaha.
HB: And he is dealing with these issues. So it can even be gender- based violence. I could be going through that as a man.
But for me to come and talk to someone about it, first I think what are they going to say about me, I am not man enough and things like that.
So, I think men are dealing with a whole lot of things and they are just failing, they do not have platforms where they can go and share comfortably, and just no holds barred.
We are not judging each other, we need to help each other. If you fall this is how you get up.
TN: Are these safe spaces? Because I think that is the thing isn't it?
HB: Oh true.
TN: Are you going to come to me for mentorship and I am going to go around drinking my coffee and telling people that Henry was with me and this is what he said?
Am I going to come to you and say Henry I am battling with these issues? Are these safe spaces?
How do we make the spaces safe so that I feel comfortable I should come and share with you?
HB: We need to just get to a place where it is actually important to have safe spaces, but I think if we become our own brother’s keepers, and have a platform where we are saying let us just share as men, I think that is safe as you can get Trevor.
As real men talk yes we will, or not even we will, but as real men talk what we talk...
- “In Conversation With Trevor” is a weekly show broadcast on YouTube.com//InConversationWithTrevor. The conversations are broadcast to you by Heart and Soul Broadcasting Services. The conversations are sponsored by WestProp Holdings.