The Men and Boys Coalition, the UK’s only broad-based charity advocating on behalf of issues that disproportionately affect men and boys, has been awarded a two-year start-up grant to support its development and on-going campaign work.

The award from funder Tudor Trust will underpin the Coalition’s work on issues of male gendered disadvantage that are largely neglected by politicians, the media and the policy sector — such as boys’ educational underachievement, men’s mental and physical health and male victims of domestic and sexual violence.

The Men and Boys Coalition, which launched in Parliament in 2016 as an entirely volunteer-run organisation, is the first of its kind in the UK and represents more than 80 charities, academics, campaigners and business people who are committed to improving the well-being of men and boys. The Charity was formally registered with the Charity Commission in April of this year.

The charity’s newly appointed CEO, award-winning journalist and co-founder of insideMAN magazine, Dan Bell, said: “We are hugely grateful to the Tudor Trust for supporting our work on areas of male disadvantage, which are all-to-often ‘orphan issues’ when it comes to political concern, media profile and policy action.

“Yet despite the low-profile of gendered disadvantage affecting men boys, these are issues that are widespread and go right to the heart of the lives of individuals and their communities — for example, young men are a third less likely to go to university than young women; male suicide is the leading cause of death for men aged under 45 and at a rate that is three times that of women’s; men make up around 86% or rough sleepers and 96% of the prison population.

“Our mission is simply to recognise need where it exists and address it accordingly. We are absolutely committed to supporting the important work done by colleagues on the many areas of disadvantage faced by women and girls, we believe this is entirely consistent with also taking action on issues that the evidence shows disproportionately affect men and boys.”

On-going work by the Coalition includes the development of a toolkit for educators to support boys academic, emotional and personal education; resources to underpin the wellbeing of male university students and the development of recommendations for a national men’s health strategy.

To date, campaigns by the Coalition and its members have logged a number of important wins, these include securing the first Crown Prosecution Service statement on male victims of sexual and domestic violence and the inclusion of Coalition recommendations for boy-friendly RSE education in Government guidelines.

ENDS

For further information, please contact: Dan Bell, Chief Executive, Men and Boys Coalition

Ph: 07747 463 255 / info@menandboyscoalition.org.uk

Key data and information are available on the Men and Boys Coalition website here:

http://www.menandboyscoalition.org.uk/statistics

A full list of Coalition members is available here:

http://www.menandboyscoalition.org.uk/members