It's a boy!

Welcome to the birthing of this blog, Boy Oh Boy, Whanganui.
Boy Oh Boy, Whanganui, will follow a project I have undertaken which focuses on raising good young men in Whanganui.
The project is part of a course called Self Expression and Leadership, a three-month programme run by training and development business Landmark Education.
A key element in the course is taking on a project that inspires me.
While I no longer live in Whanganui, I was raised there and returned there to raise a family.
It's a great place with great people and I still have family there, including two grandchildren
Here's how my thinking started with this project:
Whanganui is a typical Kiwi place where boys can grow to young men with less power and inspiration than they deserve - they don't get to see what's really possible in life at a young age. The results are actions like violence and broken families. It has become generational. And it is not confined to a particular socio-economic group. It just looks a different way in different socio-economic groups.
Here's what I've done so far:
I've swapped emails with Celia Lashlie, author of He'll be OK: Growing Gorgeous Boys into Good Men, exploring the idea of an event she may speak at. She's open to the idea.
I've talked with various friends in the city about the project and will continue to do so, exploring ideas.
I was put onto one interesting contact, Joseph Driessen (www.educationanswers.com), a former Whanganui teacher and now leading international educator in boys' education who was great to talk to. He suggested we can't look at boys 'problems' in isolation from girls. He said a lot of good work was already being done by in various sectors, and perhaps given the scale of the issue, perhaps my energies would be better placed working inside a good existing programme that did not have a presence in Whanganui, such as Project K.
I liked the sound of that, made email contact, and they recommended I have a look at their web info (www.projectk.org.nz) and get back to them. That's work in progress.
My plan also includes getting a group of men together, ordinary blokes who have been boys, fathers, husbands, grandfathers, sons, as a focus group (I like the sound of 'Good Fullas In Focus'), to chew over the issue. That will be on the weekend of February 13-14 (time to be set) for a couple of hours. Anyone interested is welcome to join us.
And I will be continuing to do more interviews on this.
And that's where I am at right now.
All feedback welcome.
B-)