Journeymen’s One Village Initiative (OVI) is a collaborative project with the mission to support the development of mentorship and rites of passage experiences for all youth in our communities.

No. And this has been reinforced consistently in our conversations with stakeholders. Since our beginning five years ago, we have heard overwhelmingly how important it is to have dedicated spaces for youth and adults to engage in identity-based explorations of self, gift and purpose. And this won’t be changing anytime soon. At this time we’re still planning to offer at least as many experiences for boys as we have in previous years. 

The One Village Initiative is an ongoing conversation that will take shape as we engage with our community. It is important for us to move delicately and deliberately to ensure we are acting in integrity with our mission, values and the needs of our “village”. 

At this time we are committed to offering Kindle, our 2 day, one night campout for youth of all genders and one of their parents/guardians. After careful consideration, we decided that this experience was well suited to become our first offering in the One Village Initiative in 2022, as it is focused on the parent-child bond, targeted for younger participants, and was already held by a gender-diverse staff.

We are are currently considering piloting a version of The Quest for teens / young adults of all genders. The final decision to offer this experience will be determined at a later date, after further conversation with potential staff, our elders council, our network of professional guides, youth advisors, and our board of directors.

Many of our Journeymen training courses are offered to folks of all genders, and we will continue our tradition of offering many opportunities for youth and adults to develop their skills in mentorship and rites of passage leadership that furthers the Journeymen mission as well as the goal of the One Village Initiative.

Thankfully we have a large pool of qualified mentors, guides and elders of all genders right here in our community who have expressed a desire to be involved in creating and staffing experiences for youth of all genders. While most of our current Journeymen employees are men, we will continue to train, recruit and collaborate with women, non-binary and transgender folks who feel called to join us in this endeavor. If you’re interested in mentoring, feel free to fill out an application here, or check out our training experiences here.

The shift toward a more inclusive model is one that has come as the result of significant deliberation among our youth, staff, board, council of elders, and community partners. Since our beginning in 2016 we have consistently heard a call from our stakeholders to build upon the success of our model and expand to work with folks of all genders. And it has required us to dig deep into our values, consider our resources and capacity, as well as our vision for the work we have committed our hearts to:

MEN OF INTEGRITY

RESPECTING ALL

THRIVING TOGETHER

We’ve always known that the benefits of creating male-specific groups are only beneficial if we also consider the ways we must integrate our growth into the “Real world”, where we regularly interact with folks of all genders in virtually all aspects of our lives. While it might not seem obvious at first, we believe that this initiative will help us realize our vision sooner and more fully, and also integrate vital learning from folks across the gender spectrum to enrich the lives of the whole village around us.