The Men's resource centre started 5 years ago as a joint effort with a group of students from the University of Saskatchewan. Our objective of creating a place where men could receive help and direction to community resources was broadly supported in our consultations with the community. The centre was founded on a vision of being male positive and pro-feminist.
The ensuing five years have seen us struggle with the vision and objectives set out at the start. Board members have left us with some of them stating that "men are just not a priority for me right now". Potential new board members and volunteers have sometimes been "turned off" by our vision as pro-feminist and gay affirmative. We have undergone an organized telephone and email harassment campaign by men's and fathers' "rights" activists in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
One aspect of our founding vision that has also been a challenge has been our refusal to seek out public funds for campaigns and services. This principled position (based on not competing against women and children's programs for limited public monies) was established early on and reinforced through our public consultation process. It is a worthwhile position that has however left us few options for expanding the work we do with men and boys.
In spite of some of these challenges we have been able to continue to deliver an up to date website that includes parenting resources and access to health and mental health information for men. Seeing a gap in services we started to offer our Anger management groups. We organized and reinvigorated the White Ribbon campaign in Saskatoon. We created the Fathers project to celebrate the nurturing side of men and have offered some public education sessions to men in our community on issues like Andropause and Male Violence.
The MRC is now at a crossroads, the last Board of Directors has been dissolved and a small working group is looking at options to reinvigorate the MRC and recruit an active and engaged Board of Directors. We know that our goals are still supported in the community and we know that our original guiding principles are the ones that we want to continue working with. But we want to be an even more effective and relevant place of support and resource for men and boys in Saskatoon.
Stay tuned for more as we work through these changes. Oh yeah, one week to the Rio conference...
