Our boys need positive role models – Nomdarkham
THE BLACK Kings Rising (BKR) movement launches its ‘Featured Faces’ socialmedia project today in an effort to inspire at-risk young men who have been ostracised.
Jump-starting the i nitiative on International Men’s Day, Joel Nomdarkham, a digital marketer and social media expert, along with his team of fellow creatives, will be showcasing video content and images on eight men from all walks of life. The discussion will centre on topical issues such as family values, men’s mental health, and education.
Nomdarkham told The Gleaner on Thursday that the BKR community of 27 members initially started in 2020 through a tweet soliciting support in mentoring young men.
The initiative emerged amid the Black Rights Matter movement that generated global support after a racially motivated killing of George Floyd by US police officers.
“Of course, it happened i n America, but any black person would have known what those effects are and what it does to the mind ... . There are so many challenges that we have i n Jamaica,” he said.
SIMILAR CULTURAL EXPERIENCES
Citing gang murders of men and the high-school dropout rate in Jamaica, Nomdarkham believes that both countries have similar cultural experiences.
“That tweet grew into a movement,” he remarked as the BKR team had their first launch on World Social Media Day, June 30.
Nomdarkham wants to see more serious conversations about masculinity and has called for men to shun traditional behaviours such as crude catcalls and violence against women.
“We want to start a movement to encourage the undoing and the unlearning of certain things,” he added.
Nomdarkham has also gathered a small group of women advisers to shine a light on perspectives and behaviours that men themselves have not considered to be offensive.
The BKR group consist of farmers, barbers, fishermen, and others who offer inspiring stories.
Nomdarkham says there will be some “seriously uncomfortable conversations over the next couple of months” to shake things up. He believes that many more positive role models must be highlighted within the various social spaces. “Our boys find it very hard to find positive male role models because you won’t find much of them in the inner city where most of the problems are, and then they don’t really get exposed as much to certain programmes that are substantial,” he said of one-off social intervention projects.
The BKR group will convene a Twitter Spaces meeting Friday at 8 p.m.