Taking Off the Mask
Speaker: Ashanti Branch, MEd
Date: Friday, March 17, 2017
Time: 12:30 – 2:00 pm
This workshop is geared for adults who are working with young men and want to cultivate genuine connections. For many boys across America, living up to male stereotypes, burying emotions, and feeling alone is the norm. From suicide to substance abuse to violence, society's narrow definition of what it means to "be a man" is creating a host of unintended consequences, for young men as individuals and for our society as a whole. This workshop will be an experiential opportunity with practical exercises in taking off your own mask as a beginning to learn how to support youth in doing the same. The workshop was created by Ashanti Branch, MEd, and featured in the documentary "The Mask You Live In".
Ashanti Branch, born and raised by a single mother on welfare in Oakland, California, got out of the ghetto through studying and pursuing a career in civil engineering. While this career satisfied financial needs, there was something deeply missing. After tutoring struggling students, he realized that the real “fire” in his life was teaching. He hoped to ignite a similar enthusiasm in his young students. In 2004 as a first-year teacher, Ashanti started The Ever Forward Club, a nonprofit organization, to provide a support group for African-American and Latino males, who were not achieving to the level of their potential. Since then, The Ever Forward Club has grown to help 100% of its members graduate high school and 93% of them have gone on to attend college, trade school or military. Ashanti is now Executive Director at Ever Forward - Siempre Adelante and 2016 fellow at the Institute of Design at Stanford University.
Registration Information:
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