A Band of Brothers Eastbourne

Aim

This project will support 18-25 year old men in our community to make better choices. Older men will mentor and role model to younger men.

Who are we?

We are a group of men from Eastbourne, who attend a weekly circle every Thursday night. A place where young men can attend and talk freely about their hopes, dreams and aspirations as well as their pain, curses and traumas.  Young men go through a series of mentioring with older men. We offer a 10 week mentorship by way of introduction to A Band of Brothers and to understand their lives in terms of relationships, upbringing, choices and of course their aspirations fro change. This leads into a Rites of Passage Weekend. A weekend where the young men have an ooportunity to look at themselves in a far deeper way than they have probably ever gone before. This can weekend can be quite literally life changing. The young men then enter a 12 week Quest Cycle; consisiting of weekly mentoring and weekly attendance to the Thursday night circle. During this 12 weeks the young are involved in 4 Community days where, with their mentors they attend as a volunteer to support community events. This can be anything from helping clear a woodland for community use to Stewarding at events such as Eastbourne Carnival. The Quest Cycle culminates in a celebration of the young means success called The Homecoming. An evening where dignitaries attend with the young mens families and friends to celebrate the success the young men have achieved in making better, positive choices for themselves. 

Impact

We benefit 

The young men 

Older men 

The Probation Service - 80% of young men who go through our programme do NOT reoffend. 

The families of the men we support - as they progress through the Quest Cycle they gain skills around controlling behaviours  which naturally achieves a far more balance in their relationships of those around them, in particular their families. This can be evidenced at the Homecoming Celebration where it is regularly commented that the families have become significantly closer due to less anti social behaviours and more openess, honesty and integrity displayed by the young men.

Communities receive a young man that desires an independent and positive life that is healthy in their choices, considerate to those around them and understands the negative impact when they make unhealthy choices. These young men move from an attitude of 'no one cares about me so why should I care' to a place of 'I care about myself and I want to be happy'.

The community receive an army of volunteers to support community projects through each Quest Cycle. This could be anything from decorating a community space, litter pick a community area, support tree planting initiatives, provide stewards at community events such as 'Fun Days' and Carnivals.

The front page of our web site really explains in far more detail - please take a look

https://abandofbrothers.org.uk/

Why are we crowdfunding?

Our work transforms the lives of young men and their communities, whilst saving the state (and ultimately the taxpayer) £40,000 a year for each avoided incarceration. Instead, we create well-rounded men who contribute back to society with healthy aspirations and a renewed sense of wellbeing. 

We're consistently proud of the results that the young men who complete our ‘Quest for Community’ programme achieve; with 80% of participants either going on to not re-offend or reporting a much lower severity in their offending behaviour.

We achieve this success by bringing young men and adult role models together for an intensive rite-of-passage programme coupled with an accredited mentoring curriculum. This immersive journey both challenges and encourages the young men’s growth, whilst providing them with the foundation of a lasting community and a wider network of support.

Our pioneering approach has been tailored to address the key contributors to offending behaviour identified both within the Social Exclusion Unit's report "Reducing Re-offending by Ex-prisoners" (2002) and equally the findings of the MOJ report "Transforming Rehabilitation: a summary of evidence on reoffending" (2013).

The Problem

Men account for 8 out of 10 people cautioned by the police, and nearly 9 out of 10 people found guilty for indictable offences are men. Men are responsible for 97% of burglary and 92% of violence against the person. 95% of the UK prison population is male and over 80% of homeless people in the UK are men. Tragically, men currently commit suicide at a rate of 13 per day in the UK (or 1 every 2 hours), a figure that’s three times higher than it is for women.

Abandofbrothers regards the problem of disaffected young men as an oversight of our culture to address fundamental male issues. The disintegration of traditional family units, weaker bonds between father and son, the decline of community support structures, the proliferation of mass society, rampant consumerism and the lure of drugs and alcohol have resulted in unprecedented challenges for many adolescents and therefore for society.

As any definition of manhood seems ever more vague and even trivial, today’s boys and young men face an increasing struggle trying to grow and mature into adulthood.

The Causes

We live in a society largely stalled at adolescence. Many adult men seem to relish and prolong adolescence for decades. However tempting it may be to blame and punish disaffected youth, a range of adolescent psychopathologies are all too easy to identify in many adult men across the social spectrum.

We also believe that every young man naturally seeks identity, meaning and a purpose into which he can channel the considerable energies of early male adulthood. This is why young men who do not have strong, affirming networks of support and pro-social modelling are most at risk of extremist views and radicalisation.

Sadly, the young men we meet have often experienced or witnessed domestic violence. They may have been abused or else kept someone else’s abuse a secret. They may have experienced neglect. They may have grown up where drug and alcohol abuse is commonplace and where positive adult role models are in short supply.

We have learned, and now proven, that many long-term social problems can be alleviated if young men are provided with appropriate personal encouragement, engagement and attention from first-hand role models during this key time of transition.

Our Solution

abandofbrothers supports young men in making a healthy transition to adult manhood and creates powerful mentoring networks that they can call upon in times of need. 

The good news is that there are many adult men of conviction, courage and valuable experience that are willing and able to make such a constructive contribution, and whose hard earned wisdom has up to now lacked a context for its transmission.

Central to all of our programmes are experiences that have come to be termed “rites of passage.” Through this context we harness the integral goodwill of local adult men by providing them with a powerful training that develops mentoring skills, emotional intelligence and enhances authenticity and confidence. This in turn empowers those adult men to provide rites of passage trainings and ongoing mentorship to young men in their community.

Our approach therefore serves as a powerful catalyst for creating social capital. By reconciling generations of men, we empower each towards a mutual collaboration that serves both a common purpose and a positive vision for their own lives. Furthermore, we encourage and support young men to develop a healthy connection to their communities through engaging with the emotional literacy, confidence and respect that comes through healthy self-esteem and self-awareness.

Our Plans for Growth

We have an ambitious vision. We want to see an abandofbrothers community in every city throughout the UK, supporting thousands of men and young men.

We also want to create and build centres for working with men outside of urban areas where they can come to connect, to heal and ultimately return from with renewed purpose and vigour.

These nature based centres will provide an important antidote to the pressures and frequent toxicity of modern life. Our hope is that, one day, they could also evolve to provide arenas for learning in the areas of parenting, relationships and working with boys and young men. Finally, these centres could potentially provide a powerful alternative to our overstretched prison estates for those entrenched in the Criminal Justice System.

How we’ll spend the money raised

The money raised will contribute to the annual cost of The Eastbourne Circle in providing the support. It is circa £40,000 per year to run our charity for 12 months as we are largely all volunteers. But there are costs involved i the activities we provide and the Rites of Passage weekends we take the men on. This picture is taken at the end of April 2023 Rites of Passage Weekend. 

This project successfully funded on 26th July 2023