Mombasa, Kenya — The room was loud – not with argument, but with laughter.
The question looked simple. “Real men ask for permission before escalating physical touch. True or false?”
For a room filled with sexual and reproductive health and rights practitioners, the answer might seem obvious.
But the room did not move so quickly.
Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn
Some paused. Others weighed their answers. A few participants exchanged glances with the men beside them, the kind of look that says, ” Wait, is this a trick question? One man laughed nervously and said, half to himself, “I mean… it depends, right?” Another shot back, only half-joking, “Depends on what?” And just like that, the room was in it – not debating whether consent matters, but unpacking the messier, more honest question underneath: how did we learn what “asking” even looks like?
And suddenly, a seemingly simple question opened up a much bigger conversation about masculinity, consent, intimacy, and what men are taught about being “real men.”
This was the opening move of an interactive game designed to get men talking about the issues they are often expected to keep to themselves, from mental health and sexuality to intimacy, bodily autonomy and the pressures of being a man.
For too long, conversations about masculinity have felt like a minefield, men bracing for blame, tiptoeing around a topic that’s supposed to be about them but somehow never seems to include their voice. This session flipped that script. It turned reflection into play, vulnerability into strategy, and self-awareness into something men actually wanted to lean into rather than escape.
The game was simple. And that was the point.
The session’s facilitator was Olusegun Medupin, the Deputy Executive Director of Programmes and Operations at YouthHubAfrica, where his organisation engages men and boys in ending gender-based violence against women and girls. He leads programmes that engage young people, specifically men and boys, in ending gender-based violence while empowering young people to use digital platforms for advocacy on SRHR and GBV.
Male engagement in ending GBV is becoming a mainstream conversation, said Medupin. But there’s a catch most people overlook: it takes a man who is mentally balanced to genuinely want to contribute to that conversation. A man who has survived – or is still living through – his own version of harm doesn’t always have the capacity to show up for someone else’s. And when men are brought into the room, getting them to actually speak is its own uphill battle.
The simple question now is: what do men actually love to talk about?
“We find it very difficult for them to talk or to speak on a topic that means so much to the discourse,” he said. That silence, he argues, is partly because society has given men very few places where vulnerability is considered acceptable.
So, his team looked for another way in. It took them to football viewing centres. And what they found there stung a little.
In those crowded, noisy rooms, hierarchy disappears. A “small boy” will look a much older, more senior man dead in the eye and trash-talk his football club without a second thought, something that would never happen back in the office, where the same boy wouldn’t dare say “sir” out of turn. Rivalry, banter, passion – men bring all of it, freely, the moment the subject is football.
But flip the subject to mental health. To sexuality. To how they treat the women and girls in their lives. Suddenly, even in the beer parlour, the room goes quiet. They don’t talk about those issues.
“It’s when you get to the football house, they talk about whatever they want to talk about and whenever they want to talk about it,” said Medupin.
The lesson was simple: men do talk. They just need spaces where they feel comfortable enough to do it.
The insight wasn’t that men don’t talk. It’s that men talk when they find the right atmosphere – one without judgment, without an agenda being read to them, without the fear that vulnerability will be used against them later.
Level Up was built to manufacture that atmosphere, deliberately, structurally, on purpose.
How the Game Works
The premise is disarmingly simple: there is no winner and no loser. No one walks away with a prize. What players walk away with instead is a room full of men who have said things out loud, together, that they’ve never said anywhere else.
Participants receive cards containing questions and scenarios designed to challenge ideas about masculinity. The objective is conversation.
There are four core categories of cards, each color-coded and built around a different pressure point in how boys and men are raised.
The Hard Guy (yellow) tackles masculinity and mental health head-on: the pressure to never crack, the belief that “men don’t cry,” and the cost of keeping up toughness instead of dealing with what’s actually underneath. The Shooter (red) centres on consent, dating, and intimacy: navigating sex and romance in a world where “no” is too often treated as the opening move of a negotiation rather than a final answer.
Bodily (green) centres on bodily autonomy, not only for women and girls but for boys and men too: what it means to respect your own body and other people’s, without exception. Street Credibility centres on real-life scenarios and ethical dilemmas, the kind that force a player to sit with a grey area instead of a clean, comfortable answer.
Two additional “control” cards keep the game honest rather than punishing.
The Organiser (a black joker) lets a player skip a hard question without consequence. If you don’t draw the joker and don’t want to answer, the group simply moves on, no shame attached, no one forced to perform vulnerability before they’re ready.
The red joker is the wildcard – a free-for-all “call-out” card. If someone in the room said something earlier that deserves a second look, this card permits them to bring it back up. Nothing said is ever fully off the record; the group holds itself accountable as it goes.
The cards may be playful, but the conversations they provoke are not. The rules that hold it all together are few but firm: safety first, respect differences, no shaming.
Why the discomfort is the point
Watching the game unfold, it becomes clear that the “gotcha” isn’t the point – the pause is. Every prompt is written to sit right at the edge of a belief most men were handed without ever being asked to examine it. Real men provide. Real men protect. Real men don’t cry. Real men ask before they touch.
Some statements the room agrees on instantly. Others split it clean in half, and it’s in that split, that visible, audible disagreement among peers, where the real learning happens. Because Level Up isn’t a session where a facilitator stands at the front telling men what masculinity should look like. It’s a room where men have to say, out loud, in front of other men, what they actually believe – and then sit with the discomfort of discovering they don’t all agree.
That, ultimately, is the quiet reframe underneath the whole exercise: not every man in the room thinks the same way about consent, about anger, about softness, about power. Naming that out loud, in a card game, over drinks and snacks, with no lecture in sight, does something a keynote speech rarely can. It permits men to be curious about their own masculinity instead of defensive about it.
In a conference full of powerful data and urgent policy conversations, it might be this small, loud, laughter-filled room that leaves the deepest mark, not because it had all the answers, but because, for twenty minutes, it let men ask the question honestly.
Positive masculinity in an African context
But Level Up is not simply a game about getting men to talk. It reflects a much bigger challenge across Africa: how do you create space for boys and men to question the ideas about manhood they have inherited?
In many African communities, ideas about what it means to be a man are shaped early – by families, peers, culture, and society. Boys may be raised to be strong, to provide for their families, to not show vulnerability, and to prove their manhood. These expectations can be motivating for responsibility and resilience, but they can also be damaging when they teach men that showing emotions, asking for help, respecting boundaries, or treating women and girls as equals is a sign of weakness.
There is also positive masculinity, which provides a different lens through which to view manhood. It doesn’t mean stripping away men’s strength or identity. It means empowering men and boys to use their strength in ways that foster respect, equality, compassion, and healthy relationships. It means being able to talk about feelings, ask for help, resolve conflict without violence, respect consent and bodily autonomy, and challenge damaging gender norms with peers.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Promoting positive masculinity is therefore not about telling men how to be “better” men. It is about creating safe spaces where they can unlearn harmful behaviors and develop healthier ways of relating to themselves, other men, women and their communities, and question what they have been told about manhood.
The concept has gained traction as a public health and social development strategy, with programs across many African countries engaging men and boys to promote gender equality, involved fatherhood, non-violence, and better sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Initiatives like South Africa’s Sonke Gender Justice’s One Man Can campaign, which calls on men to participate in the fight for gender equality, stopping gender-based violence (GBV) and responding to HIV and AIDS. Uganda’s Sasa! community model, and West Africa’s ‘husband schools‘ community-led programs aimed at teaching men positive masculinity, reproductive health and gender equality.
They illustrate how positive masculinity is being operationalized to challenge rigid gender norms, reduce violence against women, and improve HIV prevention by encouraging men to take shared responsibility in relationships and caregiving.
Why it matters for African boys and men specifically
Across much of the continent, manhood is still tied tightly to provision, dominance, and emotional silence. These ideals are reinforced by extended family expectations, religious teaching, and peer pressure from an early age. Boys who don’t fit this mold are often ridiculed or excluded. To prove they belong, many boys engage in risky behavior like alcohol use, aggression, multiple partners, or even violence.
This isn’t unique to Africa, but the stakes are compounded by high rates of gender-based violence, weak mental health infrastructure, and cultural stigma that keeps men from seeking support until a crisis hits.
Creating judgment-free spaces, like the Level Up card game itself, gives boys and men room to practice a different version of manhood before they’re forced into the old one by community expectation.
In a conference full of powerful data and urgent policy conversations, it might be this small, loud, laughter-filled room that leaves the deepest mark…
