I'm in!
One of the best things of running a nonprofit is hearing that your work matters. Whether that be to people we serve, our supporters, or volunteers—hearing how they connect with our vision and mission never gets old. Through our volunteer intake form, we try to get a better feel for people who care about our work. This was a recent response to the question: “What makes you passionate about our work?”
There’s so many things, I could go for days! But to keep it short, there’s three main reasons: my personal story, the silent crisis of men’s mental health, and intersectionality.
I grew up under a cloud of men’s mental illness. Seemingly every man in my family, after a certain age, seemed to suffer from either depression, anxiety, or other mental ailments. While a grew up a happy kid, at the end of my high school years and my first years of college I found myself also stumbling into the same depression that seemed so prevalent in my family. I felt like I couldn’t talk to my male friends about it, that women wouldn’t respect me, and other common thought patterns. Just like my family members before me, I was bottling it up, scared to show a shred of vulnerability. It got worse and worse for nearly 2 years, until I finally got some help.
I was lucky to have a strong support network and I’ve largely bounced back from my depths. However, as an aspiring therapist, my interest was piqued, and I began to look into men’s mental health further. I found that the prevalence in my family or my own struggles weren’t a unique experience. I learned about the extent of the men’s mental health crisis, and its sociological, patriarchal, and economic backdrop. Unfortunately, I also found that a large subsection of the online community who recognized this issue used it simply as a method to bash feminism or outright ignored intersectionality, which didn’t sit right with me. I wanted to help men alleviate their mental anguish, but I was yet to find any organizations which had healthy models of masculinity.
Luckily, I stumbled upon Next Gen Men. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to volunteer. NGM seems to mirror my same passion and desire for a future of mentally healthy boys and men, but through an intersectional, feminist perspective. Specifically, I feel that a key developmental point in men's mental health is in their teenage years, and I really find Next Gen Men’s community approach towards that age group also very invigorating and important.
— NGM Volunteer Applicant
Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Jake Stika is the Executive Director of Next Gen Men and one of its co-founders.