Wilderness Awareness Community School

What a great way to teach young people about themselves and the world around them. This group gets my vote as a a great example of good mentoring and youth development.

"The Mission of the Wilderness Awareness Community School is to create an educational environment that helps teen-agers engage their natural intelligence and awakens their innate abilities to perceive and connect with the world around them. Our students immerse themselves in intensive, experiential studies of nature from both scientific and indigenous perspectives. In this effort, our students are instructed and supported by a large, diverse community of mentors from all ages and walks of life."

Be sure to read their discussion of Teaching through Mentoring

Mentoring black boys in Chicago

Young Minds Magazine: This mag from the United Kingdom has a great report on the "Michelle Clark Middle School on Chicago's west side, where a new youth mentoring scheme run by 100 Black Men of America is endeavouring to help black boys at risk of being sidelined within special education to stay instead within mainstream schooling." 100 Black Men of America, is a 32 year old national organisation with a membership of over 10,000 spread across 86 chapters in the US and abroad. These men volunteer to work "with individual schools, many of them battling against almost insuperable odds, to try to reverse the downhill trajectory of boys identified as being at risk. They set themselves the task of working preventively with black boys identified by their schools as heading towards special education."

Read this to be inspired about the heights of some men's motivation, and the impact in boy's lives that results.

Urban Boat Building

Urban Boat Building - Boat Building and Boat Instruction: If you were looking for a great model about how to do what you love and at the same time, connect with kids in your community, Urban Boat Builders is hard to beat.

"Urban boatbuilders is a youth service agency that uses wooden boatbuilding as a means to support positive youth development, academic achievement, and the development of a variety of hard and soft skills that help young people find and keep jobs. We work with young people in schools, after school, and in correctional settings."

If you have a passion, hobby or interest that you think just might be fun for kids, check out this site for some serious inspiration.

Boys tackle each other; girls whisper secrets

The importance of "rough and tumble" play for boys: This is a great article describing the work of Dr. Thomas Reed, professor and researcher of childhood education at the University of South Carolina. It describes why "rough and tumble play should not only be tolerated, but why it's necessary for the physical, socio-emotional and cognitive development of boys.

What's On at ManAlive

Supporting Men and Boys: The good people at ManAlive, New Zealand's biggest and most comprehensive men's centre, have as part of their mission the goal of supporting "men and boys of all ages to gain understanding and strength in their relationships with partners, children, family and friends." They have great community programs for men and "an extensive range of programs for youth and boys of all ages."

This is organization is a powerful force for changing masculine lives in their community and making the world a better place in general. They are high on my list of award winning organizations that are doing man-making work.