CHANGING THE LABEL
Students helping each other to redefine being a lad.
ON A WEEKNIGHT, TOM VINCENT visits student flats around Christchurch bearing a sizzling leg of lamb and roast potatoes. The 22-year-old University of Canterbury engineering student heads the not-for-profit, student-led organisation Lads Without Labels. The group was started by Vincent and friends alarmed at the conversations men don’t have with their friends and the not-unconnected suicide rate.
The kai is the foot in the door for the mahi: getting young men to open up about what’s really going on and encouraging them to check up on their mates. Over dinner and a “flat chat”, Vincent and the Lads Without Labels volunteers try to get young men talking to one another and to be frank about their mental health. Transitioning to university can be tough, says Vincent; alcohol and drugs are often used to mask difficulties.
Vincent attended Christchurch’s establishment Christ’s College. He learnt there that he should play rugby and row because sports jocks were revered. Getting drunk and getting laid were also ideals fed to him by his peer group and the wider media. And he shouldn’t be too emotional – you can cry at kindergarten and primary school, but you’ve got to toughen up as you progress through the school years.
“There’s a disparity between the mental health of young males and young females and that’s down solely to the fact that young males don’t talk to each other, to friends, to family, or go and seek professional help,” he says. “They deal with stuff inside and it eats away at them.
“When you check up on your mates, the response is often like, ‘Yeah, no, mate, I’m all good.’ Which is the easiest response.
“It’s about trying to teach them to be honest. [So] when someone checks up on you, you say, ‘I’m feeling a bit low and struggling with this and that.’”
Vincent wants men to work on being comfortable with these conversations, “so when stuff does go wrong, you can reach out to your mates”.
Although the name refers to lads, the group has as many female volunteers as males.
“It takes a village to make a shift. We’re trying to create good young men who, once they leave university, become good men. Part of that is having strong, healthy relationships with the females in their lives.’’