
Boys Voices in Words: A Soroptimist Challenge Valuing Boys’ Expressive Writing
Men in our culture have been conditioned to believe that showing emotion is a sign of weakness therefore many feel pressure to suppress feelings and put on a façade of toughness. Our latest project aims to encourage emotional expression positively to help young men at a formative stage improve their ability to share their feelings. We held our inaugural event with students from Ferndown Upper School and Bourne Academy on May 21st. Nine boys had written pieces about immigration, asylum seekers and refugees; they then read out the work and were questioned by a panel of judges. Every piece had merit and the judges found it difficult to decide who the top three were, in fact they choose four with a joint third place. We were well supported in this endeavour: Aref Dahwan, an asylum seeker who now has refugee status, spoke to us and









