Speaker 1: Wake. It's your early breakfast with Africa Milani. Eight minutes
Speaker 1: nine is two five o'clock. A movement is in place,
Speaker 1: rooted in the belief that real community change begins by
Speaker 1: creating safe spaces for men to open up, to heal
Speaker 1: and to grow. That movement is called Men Stand Tall.
Speaker 1: Dennis Stander is the founder of the movement. Let me
Speaker 1: welcome him to the show now, Dennis, A very good
Speaker 1: morning and welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Good morning Africa, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. Wow,
Speaker 2: it's nice and early, and I'm in gred these other
Speaker 2: people that's awaken.
Speaker 1: Yes, now there are quite a few who are awake
Speaker 1: at this time on a Friday morning. What inspired you
Speaker 1: to start Men Stand Tall?
Speaker 2: Azrika? This happened in COVID when we as men couldn't escape,
Speaker 2: you know, when when we want space to believe, when
Speaker 2: we get into a hot space and we say, I'm
Speaker 2: want to take a walk, I just want to get
Speaker 2: out of here, and COVID actually restricted us from moving.
Speaker 2: And I was challenged with so what do I do
Speaker 2: with my emotions when I can't run away from situations?
Speaker 2: And so I'm I'm a believer in Christ and God
Speaker 2: started speaking to me about being the head of a home.
Speaker 2: What that looks like as a man. Do you do
Speaker 2: you deal with your emotions or do you just keep
Speaker 2: it in a society has taught us as men to
Speaker 2: suppress and not express. And so over that time you
Speaker 2: heard a lot about men that couldn't deal with with
Speaker 2: confined spaces, that that committed suicide over the COVID period,
Speaker 2: and I thought of how do I stand to in
Speaker 2: my home as a man and a leader for for
Speaker 2: my wife and I'm a newborn, and just navigating that
Speaker 2: through COVID started this movement called Men Stand Toll And
Speaker 2: our catchphrase is men stand toll and on our knees before,
Speaker 2: because that's where we find strengths. I think I grew
Speaker 2: closer to God in COVID because he taught me a
Speaker 2: lot about who I am and who I am. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's just the foundation of where it's started.
Speaker 1: Because we we have to sadly accept that for some men,
Speaker 1: and it's not all men we should acknowledge, but for
Speaker 1: some men it is difficult to open up to talk
Speaker 1: about feelings. And it's only when you open up and
Speaker 1: are able to be vulnerable about those feelings that you
Speaker 1: can begin the process to heal, can't you?
Speaker 2: Yes? Again? As we would, We were taught that as men,
Speaker 2: boys don't cry. Men don't cry in my community, the
Speaker 2: city had to keep in your tears because you're giving
Speaker 2: away power. You a recurrence, they say, And so so
Speaker 2: we have this god exterior, but inside we crying. We're
Speaker 2: yearning to do to express. So you go into a
Speaker 2: corner and you cry, and said, nobody sees it because
Speaker 2: there's judgments when they see tears, and and now how
Speaker 2: do you deal with these kind of things? And me
Speaker 2: growing up on the paperods, it was a big thing
Speaker 2: because you you had to own yourself as a boy
Speaker 2: from young already. But I'm learning that by me keeping
Speaker 2: my in my emotions, I became weaker because when the
Speaker 2: emotions really come out, then it comes out with the
Speaker 2: wrong people. And so so it's not directly to to
Speaker 2: to the right energies inside of you. And that's why
Speaker 2: I think we have campaigns like gender based violence. I
Speaker 2: believe the bully was bullied, and because he was bullied,
Speaker 2: he got this exterior that that sees I'm going to
Speaker 2: be tough, but inside, amen, we've broken as men. So
Speaker 2: we'll be looking at spaces where we can create for
Speaker 2: men to come shape and not say only about sports
Speaker 2: or cars. All these kind share what we feel without
Speaker 2: prejudice and judgment.
Speaker 1: And that's king. What programs do you offer, Dennis?
Speaker 2: So there's these different programs that we we busy with. Currently,
Speaker 2: I'm working with with boys in a community called a
Speaker 2: Nova Park. And our question that we're just facing is
Speaker 2: what is a man? What is a boy? And we
Speaker 2: untack this and we were so stuggling to get to
Speaker 2: those answers. But what is nice is that you're getting
Speaker 2: other men to talk about what they perceive as men.
Speaker 2: We even go google what it says about what a
Speaker 2: man is, We go revisit what our communities say a
Speaker 2: man is. Are the role models in our communities? Can
Speaker 2: you name them? Are the bad role models in our communities?
Speaker 2: Can they name them? And the sad thing is we
Speaker 2: can name more bread role models and good role models.
Speaker 2: So we're looking at changing that narrative in the programs
Speaker 2: that run. Also, we also run a methodological post post
Speaker 2: and post stands for Power of Storytelling where we unearthed
Speaker 2: people's stories, where we start owning our own stories for
Speaker 2: too long, other people have been telling our stories. But
Speaker 2: when you start owning your story, you've then view that Amen,
Speaker 2: I'm validated, my story counts, my story matters.
Speaker 1: I'm going to direct listeners to your website, which is
Speaker 1: Men Stand Tall dot co dot z A to read
Speaker 1: up more, of course, about the work that you do
Speaker 1: and more importantly, how they can help. You've got an
Speaker 1: event coming up on the thirteenth of September, a karaoke
Speaker 1: and laughter fundraiser.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so we I'm also into the arts. I'm
Speaker 2: a professional actor, but I'm a script writer, poet. All
Speaker 2: the things in the arts are just down play an instrument.
Speaker 2: So we're using this fundraiser Karaoke, Old School and laughter
Speaker 2: to raise funds for MENSTAN tools that we can go
Speaker 2: into more communities. We also do youth camps, camps for
Speaker 2: boys and girls as well, and so this is to
Speaker 2: raise funds for for us as an organization, but it's
Speaker 2: also creating a space where we can just break away
Speaker 2: from the noise, from the strips, from anxiety, where you
Speaker 2: can come and just breathe in and sing and we
Speaker 2: sing along and we don't and we have comedians that
Speaker 2: tell jokes just to after is a healer. So all
Speaker 2: these intaments we bring together into one space and we
Speaker 2: uploft our communities and we've been doing it now for
Speaker 2: the past three months. And ahmen, it's not an event,
Speaker 2: it's an experience. So to our experience we ask Brunnby hears.
Speaker 1: Men stand told. That's CEO dot tod Or you'll find
Speaker 1: out more details about the work that Dennis Standard, the
Speaker 1: founder of the movement. Dennis, thank you very much indeed
Speaker 1: for your time. It's a very important work that you're
Speaker 1: doing where you're inviting men into a safe space for
Speaker 1: them to open up, to heal and to grow