#YellTheTruth with Next Gen Men and YouthREX!
Graphic from YouthREX
Have you seen our photos and messages as part of YouthREX’s #YellTheTruth campaign?
YouthREX is one of our key partners and collaborators. Based out of York University, YouthREX supports youth-serving organizations throughout Ontario in integrating research evidence and evaluation into their programs and organizations. We’ve been working with YouthREX since last summer to develop and refine an evaluation plan for Next Gen Men’s programs throughout the 2015-16 school year. Basically, YouthREX is helping us show the impact we are having with the young men in our programs, and helping us understand how we can learn from our program as it evolves and grow. And P.S. other youth organizations: these Customized Evaluation Supports are provided free of cost, thanks to funding from the Government of Ontario!
#YellTheTruth is a campaign that YouthREX runs every year to share the stories of youth-serving organizations across Ontario making positive changes in the community. We were asked to participate and share messages about how Next Gen Men supports young people and what #YellTheTruth means to us:
Having the courage to confront ourselves. — Jason
Starting each day by accepting my future mistakes because I can learn from them. — Jermal
Undergoing the lifelong journey of unlearning. — Jake
For Jake, Jermal, and I, you can see that a common theme for us is committing to lifelong learning and thinking critically about the work we are doing with Next Gen Men. We are always learning from the young men who are part of our programs, and from the many individuals and organizations doing amazing work in youth development, healthy masculinities, and feminism. In writing my message, ‘Having the Courage to Confront Ourselves’, I was particularly inspired by this article on Changing Privilege from an Excuse to a Reason by Laura (YouthREX’s Communications and Digital Content Officer!) and by Kevin Powell, who recently talked with Shad on CBC’s Radio Q about his personal journey to unlearn his misogynist attitudes and become a vocal supporter of women’s rights.
I’d encourage you to check out both of those links, and to keep up with YouthREX’s campaign—it’s been a great way for us to learn more about lots of cool youth organizations working across Ontario!
— Jason