UCT dialogues shaping men and society

The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Men Let’s Talk sessions concluded the first wave of conversations at the end of the first quarter.

Through the Office for Inclusivity & Change (OIC) these dialogues aim to create a safe space for men to openly discuss sensitive issues that shape their responses to social issues like sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), toxic masculinity and other related social concerns.

Paul* from The ManKind Project – a non-profit training and education organisation that host life-changing experiential personal development programmes for men – facilitated the sessions.

He became involved with UCT following nationwide protests in 2019, sparked by the brutal murder of UCT student Uyinene Mrwetyana, which highlighted the alarming levels of insecurity faced by women and children across the country. At the time, women and children rallied around the question: “Am I Next?”

“We give the men an opportunity to look at themselves honestly, understand who they are and how they show up in the world.”

“What was observed at the time was that women were getting in public spaces, taking a stand and urging men to look at the scourge [and respond] – and that was necessary on the one hand. On the other hand, men needed to go off and look at themselves and see what was going on, so we ended up running a programme then, with the first session being attended by 80 men, giving them an opportunity to speak, be heard and hear other men speak,” Paul said.

“Unfortunately, COVID-19 hit and the programme lost momentum – until I met Babalwa Gusha, a relations strategist specialist in the OIC, who helped me build the programme into the UCT residence spaces. We have been running the programme for almost four years now in the residence spaces. We take participants through different experiences over three weeks, giving the men an opportunity to look at themselves honestly, understand who they are, how they show up in the world; the impact they have (both positive and negative), and how what they bring can make society either a safer place or a more dangerous place.”

Motivation and pressure

The OIC offers a wide range of support structures and was established to build and foster an environment where everyone feels included, and where change is respected, encouraged and celebrated. For example, the Agents for Change Programme (ACES) at the OIC is aimed at building student inclusivity competencies, to enable them to become change agents. The programme focuses on training students to become competent with leading difficult and uncomfortable dialogues in transformation, inclusivity and diversity.

This group hosted 17 anti-racism and 24 anti-GBV dialogues implemented in the residences, according to the 2024 Transformation Report.

In his sessions, Paul consistently emphasises the importance of shifting away from narratives that frame men as inherently bad. “In my experience – being in the work for 14 years – beginning with ‘men are bad’ is not a good place to start. It doesn’t encourage men to step out and be involved. Rather, we want to motivate them to look at themselves honestly, where they came from, their experiences and what choices they can now make going forward.”

The sessions are divided into three parts: the introduction; the second has minimal talking and focuses on experience; and the third deals with deeply personal drivers of behaviour.

“What we observe with the young men is that a lot are, for the first time, away from home, and there’s a level of freedom they were not anticipating. That comes with responsibility and self-motivation and pressure.”

Paul concluded: “A powerful motivating factor of the sessions is that they provide an opportunity for participants to reflect on themselves more broadly, learn from past choices and make different ones going forward. These choices are hopefully ones that will serve them and society better in the long run.”

*Facilitator preferred to be addressed by first name only.