My seventeen years experience, working with boys and men, has shown me that the most influential recruiters of gang memberships are, loneliness/alienation, and the lack of support in helping boys and young men to cultivate positve male awareness.
Families, communities and schools are still nurturing a jerk masculinity, which is based on a hierarchical world in which dominance, power, and control is a marker of maleness and masculine identity. Men are celebrated for their physical bravery and stoicism, glamorised for their rugged individualism and sexual prowess, and rewarded for the ability to compete, win, and succeed at all costs. This messaging, tells boys and young men that – we need men to be armoured and cut off from their compassion in order to be effective warriors, explorers, and lovers. Consequently, The experience of being disconnected from their emotion and that of others caused many boys and young men to remain in the shallows of the sea of maleness and masculinity.
But the tides are turning. There are men with compassion and integrity who are evolving and, --challenging unhealthy masculinity. Now, they are supporting boys and young men to move away from their masculinity of quiet desperation, --and towards a masculinity of meaningfulness that leads to deeper relationships and a more satisfying lives.
Gang violence, and violent street cultures are typical expressions of an unhealthy masculine identity. In order for society to steer young men away from anti-social masculinity, then they need to provide schools, communities and families with the training, which would nurture boys with pro-social masculine skills whiles they are going through the transition from boyhood to manhood.
We can support boys and young men to make positive masculine behaviour choice, by nurturing them to cultivate growth, not only in their harder human qualities of competitiveness, control, and independence but in learning the art of partnership, compassion, and openness.
The Positive Male Awareness programme (PMA) provides materials, training and support to schools, communities and families, in order to helps young male discover and explore what it means to become a complete person characterised by compassion, respect for others and self by being open to emotions and new ideas, acceptance of differences, pursuit of intimacy, and dedication to personal growth.
By Uanu Seshmi
If you would like to know more about the The Positive Male Awareness programme contact Uanu Seshmi |
