The Department of Communities has announced a peer-to-peer program coaching high school boys how to embrace healthy masculinity and positive attitudes towards women.
The MAN UP program, to be rolled out in Western Australian classrooms, aims to change the attitude, approach, behaviour and language around modern masculinity, enabling young men to embrace positive ideas over toxic ones at an earlier age.
Education workshops will be run for boys in Years 7-to-12 and will focus on mental health and wellbeing, with an emphasis on transforming boys into confident, purpose-driven, emotionally capable men.
Minister for Youth, Dave Kelly said MAN UP would be delivered by a team of young men and would involve discussions with boys in schools about how traditional ideas around masculinity could be harmful, while providing alternative, healthy ways for them to define masculinity.
The WA-based initiative and program was co-founded in 2019 by Haseeb Riaz and Gareth Shanthikumar and received the Youth Group Achievement Award at the 2021 WA Young Achiever Awards.
It will receive $90,000 from the Department of Communities over three years to further develop and expand the reach of the service.
Mr Kelly said mental health issues in men could stem from a toxic concept of masculinity that required men to ‘man up’ or ‘toughen up’, to keep their emotions and vulnerability tightly controlled and hidden at all times.
“We know that these extremely harmful ideas of masculinity are still pervasive in our community,” Mr Kelly said.
“Through its peer-to-peer delivery method, the MAN UP initiative cuts through these stereotypes and teaches our high school boys that it is ok to embrace vulnerability and to stand up for what’s right.”
