From time to time, we at the MRC receive requests to share specific content and information with those on our email list. We screen these requests quite carefully, discuss them at our Board meetings, and deliberate as to appropriateness, relevance, and timing. What follows below is something that we feel is important for those on our email list to know about as it fits within the broad context of our mission and vision. It is for information-sharing only, and we leave it to you to decide if and when you might wish to follow up according to your own personal considerations.
With Appreciation,
Daniel Cantor Yalowitz, Ed.D.
On Behalf of the Men's Resource Center Board of Directors
Hello
If you know of any family with a teen boy who would benefit from the positive male support and fun activities of a mentoring group, and/or any men who would like to step forward to do the important work of mentoring teen boys (the commitment is either once or twice each month, for 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon), please share this info with them.
Click here to see a recent front-page story about Boys To Men that appeared in both the Greenfield Recorder and the Daily Hampshire Gazette in the Northampton area.
Thanks,
John Berkowitz,
Boys To Men Teen Mentoring Network of Western Mass. and Southern Vermont
Here's an update on the Boys To Men Teen Mentoring Network:
We're off to a great start in Greenfield; starting a new group soon in Northampton/Hadley; and halfway through our second year with twice as many boys in Brattleboro!
14 boys, between the ages of 13 and 17 and living in the Greenfield MA and Brattleboro VT areas, completed the Rite of Passage Adventure Weekend last August or in August '08-- a physically and emotionally challenging, and safe, initiation into young manhood.
They are now called 'Journeymen', on their journey through adolescence to manhood. They are meeting from Sept.'09 to Sept. '10 in Greenfield every other Sunday in a group of 5 boys and 4 mentors, and in Brattleboro once a month in a group of 9 boys (including 5 who have been in the group for the past year and a half) and 5 mentors.
They're doing fun and challenging indoor and outdoor sports and activities, as well as discussing issues they are facing as teens and what it means to grow up into healthy respectful men-- who dont resort to physical, verbal, or emotional abuse and violence toward women, children, and other men, and who will also nurture and protect the environment.
We are seeking new families with teen boys, as well as new mentors, to participate in second groups in Brattleboro and Greenfield. Our new group in the Hadley/Northampton area starts this June with 6 teen boys and four mentors, and a second group is planned for the fall.
We'd appreciate it if you'd forward this message to others on your email list, and/or share it by word-of-mouth.
For more information, contact John Berkowitz, local coordinator for Boys To Men Teen Mentoring Network in western Mass. and southern Vermont 413-625-6374 johnpberk@gmail.com.
Websites: boystomennewengland.org and boystomen.org
(Both are tax-exempt, non-profit organizations; national Boys To Men was founded in 1997, and has served over 3300 teen boys.)
More details about the Boys To Men Teen Mentoring Network:
The 14 boys, along with 15 others from around the northeast USA and Canada, first participated in a 2-day Rite of Passage Adventure Weekend (Ropaw) in either August '08 or August '09 at a rented summer camp in Dummerston, VT (near Brattleboro). This event was organized and staffed by 50 men, many of whom are involved in the regional and national ManKind Project, and included the founder of the nation-wide Boys To Men organization. 12 boys, who had completed a Ropaw in the past year and become Journeymen, also attended as staff members.
It was a fun and safe--yet physically and emotionally challenging--ritual of initiation into young manhood. Over 3300 boys have completed Ropaws in the past 13 years around the country, and all of them were mentored, by one or more mentors, for 1 to 4 years after their Ropaw.
In the Jgroups that followed the Ropaws, we've gone on many mountain hikes, pressed apples into cider, chopped and stacked wood and cleared brush, gone bowling, biking, skating and sledding, played soccer, touch football, frisbee, badminton, dodgeball, and disc golf, shot bows and arrows (pointless) and carved bows from sapling trees, gone swimming and canoeing/kayaking, used a forge to bend and shape metal tools, made pizza, and walked in streams . We've also taken turns--while sitting in a check-in circle--talking about both the good stuff and the hard, challenging things happening in our lives. We also talk about issues and topics such as healthy relationships, dating and sexuality, and male archetypes.
Our mission is to support and encourage boys through the challenges of adolescence, and to become young men of compassion, integrity, and accountability. We believe that there is a crisis in our nation among boys, and that they need much more caring attention from men in addition to their fathers or father-figures (if they have one at all) in order to grow into healthy and productive men, fathers, and citizens themselves.
We also believe such mentoring of young men is needed to help them grow into men who will be happier, more self-confident, and far less likely to resort to violence and abusive behavior and attitudes toward others, especially women and children, and toward the environment.
We offer consistent and effective mentoring and modeling of behaviors and attitudes through biweekly or monthly group activities and discussions. The new groups will consist of 5 to 7 boys between 13 and 17 years old, and 3 to 5 mentors of varying ages. Mentors will also meet by themselves once every two months. The groups will start early next year, and the boys will attend one of the 2 Ropaw weekends happening next summer, one in New York City, the other in Dummerston, Vermont.
Mentors are chosen carefully after completing a thorough criminal record background check, several in-depth interviews, and an optional but strongly-encouraged 30-hour mentoring training program called "Reclaiming Your Teenage Fire." The group mentoring model also greatly minimizes the risk of abuse of any boy, and of any unfounded allegation-- by a boy or his family-- of abuse by a mentor. It also offers the boys more than one mentor to interact with and learn from, and the mentors a sense of group support and camaraderie. It also means that one or two mentors can miss a biweekly Jgroup occasionally, and the show will still go on without them.
The cost is $450 for each boy to attend a Ropaw, and to participate in the Jgroups that follow for a year. Mentors can attend the Ropaw, too, and pay $150. Scholarship assistance is available upon request. Both in '08 and '09, more than half of the 14 families with participating sons received partial or full scholarship assistance.
John Berkowitz, local Boys to Men Coordinator, lives in Shelburne, Massachusetts, (near Greenfield) after living in Putney and Saxtons River, VT for 35 years. He is 62 years old, has 2 children and 2 grandchildren, and has worked with families with young children and adolescents at the Brattleboro Housing Authority, Early Education Services (HeadStart program), HCRS (Community Mental Health Agency), and Putney Day Care Center. Contact him at 413-625-6374, johnpberk@gmail.com.