What Drives this Work?
Community-Based
Our goal is to truly transform the conditions in our communities that have led to crises of toxic masculinity, gender-based violence, and intergenerational cycles of trauma amongst boys and men. Towards that end, we are coming together to plant and cultivate system-changing work that centers multigenerational, community-based approaches to nurturing and supporting boys and men in Pima County to cast off narrowly defined gender roles in favor of living from wholeness and authenticity.
Healthy Masculinity
While this work entails multiple differently-scaled components, a core aim is to ensure that all boys and masculine-identified youth in Tucson have access, both geographically and logistically, to mentors, programs, and communities that promote more fluid and healthy forms of masculinity. Healthy masculinity includes acknowledging and incorporating restorative, community-based practice in many places of current punitive practices that aggravate harm for BIPOC boys and have demonstrated links to the school-to-prison pipeline.
Anti-Racist
We focus on underserved youth, especially Black and brown boys. As we are growing the resources that support young men to live from a place of wholeness, we are also organizing our community to target and transform punitive institutional policies and practices that sew violence into the lives of these boys. These approaches are culturally relevant, specific to the communities we serve both geographically and culturally, acknowledging and identifying the systems that directly exacerbate harm for BIPOC youth and men.
Accessibility
The HIM Initiative is a systems level change initiative that aims to amplify the resources and supports available for masculine identified BIPOC youth in Tucson & Southern Arizona.
Our Donors
