"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Lilla Watson, an indigenous artist, activist, and academic
Our recently launched BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of color) Scholarship, funded in part by the support of Angel Charity for Children, is one way we are growing our mentorship work through an equity framework.
For a long time, mentorship initiatives across the country world have refused to engage in a true analysis of the problems facing our youth.
Mentorship initiatives often act as though some youth are “at-risk” due to personal character defects, or that they are vulnerable to choosing the wrong path because their community is failing them—with no historical analysis of the systemic forces that have kept certain communities vulnerable and under-resourced.
Healthy masculinity work is about creating new possibilities, in our bodies, in our communities, in our relationships, and we practice that at Boys to Men through weekly talking circles all across Southern Arizona.
When we practice liberatory visions of masculinity together between boys and men in our talking, we recognize that we must have a larger vision of community restoration that goes beyond the individual. While having any man show up with love and consistency is invaluable for a boy who is struggling, having adult men who come from his neighborhood and know his struggle is a critical component of developing that liberatory vision of himself.
With your support we are devoted to breaking past old models of mentorship and support, and aspiring towards a more radical vision of a liberated future with our youth and community. Together, we are making the road by walking it.
