A community dedicated to rites of passage for boys aged 14-16
Each year Kingfisher Project offers a group of 8 teenage boys a 4-day, rites-of-passage adventure.
Throughout history, cultures have understood the benefits of initiating teenagers. They have come up with clear, firm, creative ways to guide teenagers’ energy towards self-worth and a sense of their place in the world.
But these days, many children grow up without any serious effort to mark their coming of age. A lack of rites of passage can lead young men to self-initiation and a range of troubled behaviours: from anxiety and lack of belief to addictions, aggression, and gangs.
Kingfisher Project springs from a wish to do something about this, by offering teenage boys the fresh sense of direction and self-worth provided by communal initiation.
Parents cannot provide rites of passage alone. But a group of resilient and trustworthy men, with knowledge of ritual and the human heart, can. With help from a community like this, teenagers can discover a new sense of themselves, as respected and self-respecting young men.
The Kingfisher Project team includes Simon Roe, Ben Howarth, Anthony Haddon, David Edwards, Lee Stagles, Jeremy Hawkey, Sean Taylor, Eric Maddern, Marcus Joseph & William Ayot.
Our Community
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
— from AS KINGFISHERS CATCH FIRE by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Hear from participants about their Kingfisher Project experience.