On May 16th, the In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the Boy Child [ID­BC], found­ed by Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh in 2018, was cel­e­brat­ed. The ID­BC strives to ad­dress the unique chal­lenges boys face and pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty by recog­nis­ing the im­por­tance of both the boy and girl child.

Some of the cur­rent is­sues boys face are de­clin­ing aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance, men­tal health strug­gles, and so­ci­etal ex­pec­ta­tions that dis­cour­age emo­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty (Roberts, 2022). Boys are more like­ly than girls to dis­en­gage from school, ex­hib­it be­hav­iour­al is­sues, and face harsh­er dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures (UN­ESCO, 2023). Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the ob­ser­vance of ID­BC serves as an im­por­tant call for ad­vo­ca­cy poli­cies that sup­port boys’ holis­tic de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing ac­cess to sports as a tool for em­pow­er­ment.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion in sports [com­pet­i­tive or recre­ation­al] en­hances phys­i­cal health by re­duc­ing obe­si­ty, im­prov­ing car­dio­vas­cu­lar fit­ness, and de­vel­op­ing mo­tor skills (Smith et al., 2020). Sports al­so pro­vide a struc­tured out­let for en­er­gy and ag­gres­sion for boys, who are so­cialised to be phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive. Fur­ther­more, par­tic­i­pa­tion in sports is cor­re­lat­ed with low­er lev­els of de­pres­sion and anx­i­ety (Vel­la et al., 2021). Team sports, in par­tic­u­lar, fos­ter ca­ma­raderie and emo­tion­al re­silience, coun­ter­ing the iso­la­tion many boys ex­pe­ri­ence due to so­ci­etal ex­pec­ta­tions of sto­icism (An­der­son & White, 2022).

Holt et al. (2020) state that struc­tured sports pro­grammes teach boys to han­dle suc­cess and fail­ure, pro­mot­ing a growth mind­set. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, coach­es of­ten serve as men­tors, re­in­forc­ing pos­i­tive val­ues such as team­work, re­spect, and fair play (Gould & Car­son, 2021). These lessons are crit­i­cal in shap­ing boys in­to well-round­ed in­di­vid­u­als who con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly to so­ci­ety. How­ev­er, boys will on­ly ben­e­fit if coach­es, ad­min­is­tra­tors, man­agers, and oth­er tech­ni­cal per­son­nel pos­sess the emo­tion­al and psy­choso­cial skills and tech­niques to work with boys. A reg­istry of coach­es, phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion teach­ers, and their cur­ricu­lum vi­tae will be a good start­ing point.

Fo­cus­ing on in­clu­sive sports, which tran­scend cul­tur­al and so­cioe­co­nom­ic bar­ri­ers, pro­vides boys from di­verse back­grounds with op­por­tu­ni­ties to in­ter­act and build long-last­ing friend­ships (Coak­ley, 2023). Pro­grammes such as the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Sport for De­vel­op­ment and Peace ini­tia­tive use sports to pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty, con­flict res­o­lu­tion, and so­cial co­he­sion (UNICEF, 2022). En­gag­ing boys in such pro­grammes will com­ple­ment oth­er strate­gies di­rect­ed at re­duc­ing boys’ delin­quen­cy. How­ev­er, it is im­por­tant to ac­knowl­edge that sport is not a sil­ver bul­let to so­cial de­viance!

De­spite the ben­e­fits, many boys lack ac­cess to sports due to eco­nom­ic con­straints and un­safe en­vi­ron­ments (Park­er et al., 2021). The gov­ern­ment, Na­tion­al Sport­ing Or­gan­i­sa­tions [NSOs], clubs, schools [pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary], the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, NGOs, and CBOs must con­tin­ue to in­vest in sports pro­grammes, en­sur­ing that boys from all back­grounds can par­tic­i­pate. Schools should al­so in­te­grate sports in­to cur­ric­u­la, recog­nis­ing their role in cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al de­vel­op­ment (Bai­ley et al., 2023). Again, as with the coach­es and oth­er tech­ni­cal per­son­nel, all pro­grammes must be con­cep­tu­alised ap­pro­pri­ate­ly, im­ple­ment­ed and mon­i­tored to as­sess im­pact. Equal­ly, it would be fool­hardy to be­lieve that boys and their par­ents/guardians will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly re­ceive the im­ple­men­ta­tion of such pro­grammes.

As a so­ci­ety, we have to ac­cept that there is much work to be done with boys, as they are the next gen­er­a­tion of men. Sport has po­ten­tial as a strat­e­gy, but this must be done from an in­formed re­search per­spec­tive. There is a la­cu­na of schol­ar­ly knowl­edge on sports in so­ci­ety, let alone boys and sports.

It will be mean­ing­ful if the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs and re­lat­ed clus­ter min­istries take time to analyse boys’ com­plex so­cio-eco­nom­ic-psy­cho-emo­tion­al is­sues be­fore de­vel­op­ing pro­grammes that ad­dress them through sports.