Beyond the Classroom Foundation has launched “Big Brother Conversations,” a new quarterly initiative created to provide boys with safe spaces for honest conversations around discipline, responsibility, masculinity, leadership, emotions, and personal growth.
The initiative was piloted at Destiny Child Scientific Secondary School, Abuja, in commemoration of the International Day of the Boy Child 2026, bringing together over 20 boys for a mentorship-style conversation focused on the realities and pressures boys face while growing up.
The Foundation explained that the idea for the initiative came after years of working with adolescent girls across schools and communities, where boys repeatedly asked to also be included in conversations around safety, self-awareness, and personal development.
Speaking during the session, Adah Emmanuel Ugbaha, Project Manager of Beyond the Classroom Foundation, said the organisation realised that meaningful conversations about safer communities and healthier relationships cannot exclude boys.
“For many of our girls’ sessions, boys would ask us, ‘What about us?’ and that question stayed with us,” he said.
“If we want to build safer schools and communities, we must also intentionally guide boys, create spaces where they can talk, ask questions, and learn positive values.”
According to the Foundation, many boys grow up under pressure to suppress emotions, avoid vulnerability, and “figure life out alone,” often without access to mentorship or healthy conversations around masculinity and responsibility.
Big Brother Conversations was therefore designed as a response to that gap.
The Foundation also noted that the initiative builds on its HeForHer Campaign, which over the past two years has engaged boys across schools on respect, empathy, allyship, and positive masculinity. Through the campaign, over 5,000 boys across about 10 schools received the organisation’s HeForHer Handbook and Booklet in 2025.
Beyond the Classroom Foundation stated that the initiative will continue quarterly across schools and communities as part of its broader effort to raise responsible boys and build safer environments for both boys and girls.
About Beyond the Classroom Foundation
Beyond the Classroom Foundation is a Nigerian nonprofit organisation focused on girls’ education, youth development, safeguarding, and building safer schools and communities through practical and community-driven interventions.
