Coaching Boys Into Men Is Building a Generation That Stands Up for Girls
By Leila Milani
October 8, 2026
This year’s International Day of the Girl Child, on October 11, calls on the world to end child marriage and invest in girls’ rights. It’s imperative because:
- one in five girls globally is married before age 18, and
- approximately 640 million women and girls alive today were married as children.
Girls have told us they want to stay in school, pursue their dreams and goals, and not be child brides. Ending child marriage takes laws, schools, health services, and girls’ own leadership. It also takes boys and men who see a girl’s future as worth protecting.
Engaging Boys to Be Part of the Solution
Futures Without Violence’s Coaching Boys Into Men (CBIM) is an evidence-based violence prevention program that trains high school coaches to teach their young male athletes healthy relationship skills, mental health practices, and that violence never equals strength. Coaches do this through 12 weekly discussions during the season.
In Zambia, CBIM is part of the effort to end child marriage. The Zambian Ministry of Youth, Sport & Arts reports that nearly 250,000 boys aged 10-14 completed the program between 2020 and 2023. Coaches teach boys about the harms of child marriage and adolescent pregnancy, and about sharing the work at home.
While these numbers are compelling, the stories behind them give us real hope. In Tanzania, a CBIM athlete learned about the different forms of violence against women and girls, including child marriage, and how it cuts girls’ education short. So, when a school friend confided in him about her impending marriage to an older man and, in tears, shared her desire to stay in school to achieve her dreams and goals, he had a choice to make.
Before CBIM, he said he might have stayed silent. Instead, he spoke up, first with friends and then, respectfully, with his father, asking him to intervene, explaining that her future was a shared responsibility. He stood up, then his father spoke out. The marriage did not go forward, and she stayed in school.
He did exactly what we are asking of grown men, and he did it as a child.
Global Impact
Since 2019, CBIM has been delivered in nine African countries, working with almost 2,000 coaches and facilitators, reaching more than 370,000 young people.
Our evaluation shows that CBIM is changing social norms:
- In Tanzania and Uganda, the share of boys who said they would intervene when they witnessed violence rose from 19% to 85%. The share of girls and boys who feel safe at school more than doubled, from 32% to 72%.
- In Rwanda, boys’ intent to step in when a peer used abusive behavior or language rose from 30% to 94%.
And now we’re expanding our work into Ethiopia.
With support from the Adidas Foundation, FUTURES and Soccer Without Borders are partnering with Plan International Ethiopia to bring CBIM to refugee camps in Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz and to displaced and host communities in Tigray.
Together, we will train 108 coaches, reaching more than 1,500 students/athletes aged 10-24. In communities where conflict and displacement put girls at even greater risk, these coaches will help boys understand that being champions of a girl’s future is part of being a man.
On this International Day of the Girl, we honor the girls leading this fight, and every boy and man who stands with them.
We invite you to join us. Learn more about Coaching Boys Into Men International. Sign up for training, find curriculum, and join our email list to stay in touch.
