Core Values

Accountability

We contribute to a culture of personal and shared accountability. We seek to understand the impacts of harm and ways to respond to it that center love and healing.

Community

Our work centers the southern Arizona community with the hope of building strong, interdependent relationships. In a larger society that values independence, we know that leaning into community in all aspects of decision-making and operations is essential for the support of the youth that we serve.

Growth

Staff and mentors model vulnerability and courage in talking circles, adventure outings, and other initiatives. We hope to provide learning and development for youth and their families to grow together while honoring that growth looks different for every individual. 

Equity (inclusivity, anti-racism)

We recognize that many of the harms that youth face are a direct result of systematic oppression. We pledge ourselves to learning about the impacts of systematic oppression and to doing our best to practice liberation in the spaces that we facilitate.

Healthy Masculinity

Through reflection and activities, we encourage the undoing of society’s standards around boyhood, manhood, and masculinity. We bring intention to accepting and celebrating the fullness of all of our participants’ humanity by exploring mentally, physically, and emotionally safe and balanced masculinity.

Fun

We insist on joy. We incorporate fun into the foundation of our relationships and our work. We laugh, celebrate, tell stories, and play as a core part of our programs with the youth and the mentors. 

BTM acknowledges the impact of toxic masculinity and patriarchy on all genders, and its application through: violence as a normalized use of power, the pervasive investment in the gender binary, the pressure to provide monetarily through any means, and the objectification of women. We keep these pressures in mind in our programming, explicitly naming them and offering alternative, more healthy options for embodying masculinity. We will actively challenge patriarchal norms that harm our capacity to expand and evolve as a community of learners committed to healing; interpersonally and collectively. Boys to Men Tucson acknowledges that our community is the backbone of our work, and we will continue to deepen our knowledge, skill set, resources, and programmatic support for masculine identified youth of all genders.