Wake. It's your early breakfast with Africa Milani. Eight minutes nine is two five o'clock. A movement is in place, rooted in the belief that real community change begins by creating safe spaces for men to open up, to heal and to grow. That movement is called Men Stand Tall. Dennis Stander is the founder of the movement. Let me welcome him to the show now, Dennis, A very good morning and welcome to the show.
Good morning Africa, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. Wow, it's nice and early, and I'm in gred these other people that's awaken.
Yes, now there are quite a few who are awake at this time on a Friday morning. What inspired you to start Men Stand Tall?
Azrika? This happened in COVID when we as men couldn't escape, you know, when when we want space to believe, when we get into a hot space and we say, I'm want to take a walk, I just want to get out of here, and COVID actually restricted us from moving. And I was challenged with so what do I do with my emotions when I can't run away from situations? And so I'm I'm a believer in Christ and God started speaking to me about being the head of a home.
What that looks like as a man. Do you do you deal with your emotions or do you just keep it in a society has taught us as men to
suppress and not express. And so over that time you heard a lot about men that couldn't deal with with confined spaces, that that committed suicide over the COVID period, and I thought of how do I stand to in my home as a man and a leader for for my wife and I'm a newborn, and just navigating that through COVID started this movement called Men Stand Toll And our catchphrase is men stand toll and on our knees before,
because that's where we find strengths. I think I grew closer to God in COVID because he taught me a lot about who I am and who I am. So yeah, that's just the foundation of where it's started.
Because we we have to sadly accept that for some men, and it's not all men we should acknowledge, but for some men it is difficult to open up to talk about feelings. And it's only when you open up and are able to be vulnerable about those feelings that you can begin the process to heal, can't you?
Yes? Again? As we would, We were taught that as men, boys don't cry. Men don't cry in my community, the city had to keep in your tears because you're giving away power. You a recurrence, they say, And so so we have this god exterior, but inside we crying. We're yearning to do to express. So you go into a corner and you cry, and said, nobody sees it because there's judgments when they see tears, and and now how
do you deal with these kind of things? And me growing up on the paperods, it was a big thing because you you had to own yourself as a boy from young already. But I'm learning that by me keeping my in my emotions, I became weaker because when the emotions really come out, then it comes out with the wrong people. And so so it's not directly to to to the right energies inside of you. And that's why
I think we have campaigns like gender based violence. I believe the bully was bullied, and because he was bullied, he got this exterior that that sees I'm going to be tough, but inside, amen, we've broken as men. So we'll be looking at spaces where we can create for men to come shape and not say only about sports or cars. All these kind share what we feel without prejudice and judgment.
And that's king. What programs do you offer, Dennis?
So there's these different programs that we we busy with. Currently, I'm working with with boys in a community called a Nova Park. And our question that we're just facing is what is a man? What is a boy? And we untack this and we were so stuggling to get to those answers. But what is nice is that you're getting other men to talk about what they perceive as men. We even go google what it says about what a man is, We go revisit what our communities say a
man is. Are the role models in our communities? Can you name them? Are the bad role models in our communities? Can they name them? And the sad thing is we can name more bread role models and good role models. So we're looking at changing that narrative in the programs that run. Also, we also run a methodological post post and post stands for Power of Storytelling where we unearthed people's stories, where we start owning our own stories for
too long, other people have been telling our stories. But when you start owning your story, you've then view that Amen, I'm validated, my story counts, my story matters.
I'm going to direct listeners to your website, which is Men Stand Tall dot co dot z A to read up more, of course, about the work that you do and more importantly, how they can help. You've got an event coming up on the thirteenth of September, a karaoke and laughter fundraiser.
Yes, yes, so we I'm also into the arts. I'm a professional actor, but I'm a script writer, poet. All the things in the arts are just down play an instrument. So we're using this fundraiser Karaoke, Old School and laughter to raise funds for MENSTAN tools that we can go
into more communities. We also do youth camps, camps for boys and girls as well, and so this is to raise funds for for us as an organization, but it's also creating a space where we can just break away from the noise, from the strips, from anxiety, where you can come and just breathe in and sing and we sing along and we don't and we have comedians that
tell jokes just to after is a healer. So all these intaments we bring together into one space and we uploft our communities and we've been doing it now for the past three months. And ahmen, it's not an event, it's an experience. So to our experience we ask Brunnby hears.
Men stand told. That's CEO dot tod Or you'll find out more details about the work that Dennis Standard, the founder of the movement. Dennis, thank you very much indeed for your time. It's a very important work that you're doing where you're inviting men into a safe space for them to open up, to heal and to grow