Raleigh, NC — Journeymen Triangle’s Rites of Passage Journey Weekend is designed to “compress six months of mentoring into one weekend.” Government Director Jordan Bowman describes it as a three-day, nature-based ceremony the place teenage boys confront “patterns and behaviors that not serve them” and take “their first steps to changing into a person of integrity.”
The Raleigh nonprofit mentors teen boys by means of intergenerational group mentoring circles and rites of passage experiences that emphasize accountability, emotional maturity and neighborhood help, in keeping with the group.
Bowman, who first entered an analogous program at 14 and later co-founded Journeymen Triangle along with his father, mentioned Journeymen exists to fulfill an pressing want. A necessity that Bowman has watched up shut for over 10 years, “Our boys are falling behind,” he mentioned. “Too many are struggling at school, dropping out early, and rising up with out supportive male function fashions. With out fathers or mentors, they’re extra more likely to be a part of gangs, grow to be teenage dad and mom, or drift into isolation. The hole is obvious: younger males with wholesome function fashions thrive, whereas these with out fall additional behind.”
On the weekend, the schedule follows the “hero’s journey” arc, Bowman mentioned. Boys arrive, depart behind acquainted routines and step into the woods – “numerous them have not been tenting earlier than” – the place they camp underneath tarps, hold in a single day fireplace watch with mentors and face a collection of challenges, together with a chilly plunge. They’re requested to call “the emotional masks that they put on on this world,” contemplate what’s beneath it and symbolically “give to the hearth” no matter is holding them again. “There may be masculine problem and masculine nurturing,” Bowman mentioned. “They’re invited to let go of patterns and behaviors that not serve them… and have a look at what sort of man they need to grow to be.”
Journeymen says Rites of Passage Journey Weekends (ROPAW) are phone-free and led by neighborhood mentors, aiming to assist boys “consciously select a brand new, wholesome grownup identification.”
For the autumn gathering, Bowman invited Ashanti Department – founding father of The Ever Ahead Membership and creator of the Million Masks Motion – to work with each mentors and youth. “He flew out from Oakland, California to affix us,” Bowman mentioned. “He is a facilitator… and we’re tremendous excited to have him right here to speak about this concept of the masks… the fronts they put up, and possibly what’s on the opposite facet.” Department led mentor coaching the primary evening after which facilitated a masks workshop with the boys: “The trick with the masks is that it retains you protected. However in case you hold it on for too lengthy, you’ll be able to grow to be it.”
Department mentioned his group started as a lunchtime circle throughout his first yr of instructing and now runs applications geared toward conserving college students linked to high school. “Ever Ahead is a youth growth and mentoring group… whose mission is to remove the dropout price,” he mentioned. The Million Masks Motion asks college students and adults to anonymously title what they present on the “entrance of the masks” and what they don’t seem to be displaying, to disclose widespread struggles and construct empathy. “We’re participating individuals from everywhere in the world in self-reflection by taking off the masks,” the membership’s supplies say.
“Our work… is that each one college students need to be seen, heard and understood,” Department mentioned. With out wholesome problem and instruments for journey, “they may make journey – whether or not it is protected, whether or not it is wholesome, whether or not it is good.” He referenced the proverb, “If we do not provoke the younger males, they may burn down the village simply to really feel the hearth.” His hope for boys leaving the weekend is straightforward: “If a younger man comes right here… I hope they’re going to get that they don’t seem to be alone… There may be extra to me than individuals can see by taking a look at me, and there is extra to individuals than I can see by taking a look at them.”
Bowman attracts a distinction between Journeymen and merit-badge fashions. “Our group is extra social-emotional,” he mentioned. “We’re asking them to look inside, to the touch on and discuss in regards to the elements of themselves that possibly they do not present everybody.” In common “J-Group” circles – “twice a month… we sit round a fireplace for 2 hours and so they get actual” – teenagers discuss by means of “the nice, the dangerous and ugly of being an adolescent” with skilled mentors supporting and facilitating the conversations. On ROPAW weekends, the ratio flips the norm: “There are 29 individuals right here to help 9 younger males,” Bowman mentioned. “We actually need these younger males to really feel like they’re stepping right into a neighborhood… who can ship them that message, ‘Hey, your ache issues. As we train you to face that ache, you’ll learn the way that ache can grow to be a present.”
The work is private for Bowman. “After I was an adolescent, it modified the trajectory of my life,” he mentioned of his first rites weekend. “I used to be good, however I used to be getting in hassle… discovering methods to numb out my ache.” Mentors did not scold; they requested him what the affect of his selections have been. “They gave me the accountability to be the creator of my very own story.”
Each leaders framed the weekend as a counter to isolation and to slender scripts for masculinity. Department mentioned many boys are taught to bury feelings till solely anger is appropriate, with predictable fallout for colleges, households and communities. Bowman emphasised shifting from dependence to independence to interdependence: “Being a person on the earth shouldn’t be one thing that simply occurs by age. It occurs by means of maturity and self-awareness.”
Journeymen’s program language echoes that arc, aiming to “forge independence, resilience and emotional maturity” by modeling wholesome masculinity and “supporting and difficult boys to find their distinctive presents.”
For households and would-be mentors, Bowman’s ask is simple. “If there’s anybody else on the market who needs to help younger males, I invite you to grow to be a mentor, to make a relationship with {the teenager} in your life,” he mentioned. “As a result of if they don’t seem to be speaking with you, they’re getting all their studying and data from the Web. And I do not see that understanding in our favor proper now.”
Those that want to help Journeymen Triangle’s annual fundraiser can go to Givebutter.com/circleup25
