How many boys will be a part of Kingfisher Project?

It will be a small group. We can take a maximum of 8 boys each year.

Can parents attend the Call to Adventure Weekend at Cae Mabon?

Parents are welcome to bring their sons along to the gathering, but they will not stay for the event. In a traditional initiation, a teenage boy is separated from his parents and entrusted to a community of male elders. Coming-of-age rites are about separation, appropriate challenge, and then return as a ‘changed’ young man. Without this element of separation, a successful transition to the next level of life is less likely.

Who will make a good man of trust to accompany a teenager?

A relative, a family friend, a godparent, a mentor, or someone else who has a link to the boy’s home. A man of trust with some experience around men’s work, or a willingness to engage in men’s work in the build-up to the ‘Call to Adventure’ Weekend, will best serve the boy they come with. We can suggest some first steps into men’s work for those who are interested.

Will the men of trust be actively involved?

The men of trust will participate in the online sessions - which are intended to build community and establish a safe container for the rites of passage weekend. Each man of trust will take responsibility for a teenager, and accompany him through the four days at Cae Mabon. Across this event, men of trust will serve as role models, guides, pastoral supporters and, if necessary, ritual figures. There are no gurus involved in Kingfisher Project. The circle does the work. The men of trust will be a part of that circle. So they will end up helping the specific teenagers they came with, and other participating boys as well.

What if there is nobody suitable to play the man of trust role for a teenager?

A member of the Kingfisher Project team can step into the man of trust role for any boy who wants to join the project but has no one suitable in his life.

What are the objectives of the online sessions?

To build community, deepen trust and enhance relationships between facilitators, men of trust and the team. We seek to do this by agreeing our communal purpose, reinforcing safeguarding principles, exploring the essentials of men’s work, and teaching the basics of ritual process. On the basis that men who conduct initiations need to have ‘done their own work’, we will be inviting men of trust to do any men’s work they feel they want to do. Then they will better serve the teenagers through the rites of passage weekend.

Knowing her son needs support on the way through teenage change, what can a mother do to help the process? 

Kingfisher Project offers male rites for the benefit of young males. But we absolutely include mothers as part of the project. In traditional cultures, a boy’s mother is vital to his initiation. She tells the elder men that her son is ‘ready’. Her handing over her son is an integral and honoured part of the process. (In some cultures she ritually chases him out of the household!) Likewise her respectful welcome home for him, as an initiated young man, is key to the process. These things prevent drawn-out and messy separations, typical of modern society, and costly in terms of lack of attainment, youth crime, mental health and more. So we hope that Kingfisher Project mothers will participate along these lines - consulting with men close to their boys, blessing the rites of passage process, recognising what has altered in their sons, and celebrating their ‘changed’ return.

Will parents join the online sessions?

Parents are invited along to the first half of the first online session. This serves as an introduction to the team, and a handover of the boys to their men of trust. The remaining online session time is used to forge the community of men needed to oversee the rites of passage process. So only men who are going to be present at the rights of passage gathering will participate (i.e. Kingfisher Project team members and the boys’ men of trust.)

You mention that the project is led and staffed by experienced men's work facilitators. What is “men’s work”?

Men’s work refers to men’s groups, and men-only workshops and retreats. It is work which enables men - through elements including group discussion, time in nature, poetry, story and ritual – to better cope with forces influencing male roles in modern society. Many men find it is a way to face their shame, grief, anger and other tendencies, and so find ways to change.

Can you describe how the days will pan out on the Call to Adventure Weekend?

The days will involve a carefully thought-through series of group and individual challenges - building up to a ritual experience on the Saturday. At a time when screens dominate the lives of many teenagers, these challenges will be rooted in the senses. There will be storytelling and poetry. Some work will take place in the Cae Mabon roundhouse. Some will be in the meeting-and-eating barn. Much will be outdoors, in the spectacular natural world around the centre – oak woods, mountains and lake. To get a sense of Cae Mabon and its setting, see the gallery.

What do you do in the event of disruptive influences or those refusing to fully participate?

Kingfisher Project is run by men with deep experience in the field. In a rites-of-passage, those who don’t want to participate are usually honoured, supported and challenged as necessary. If they are disruptive, they will be met full-on in a healthy and respectful way.

Why should a teenager want to take part in Kingfisher Project?

For the challenges, the excitement and the outcome. For the magic of the setting in the mountains, the power of a circle of men, and the positive effects of rites of passage.  ‘Manhood’ cannot be given by a dad or a mum. It has to be grasped - taken by a young man seeking it out, by going on a quest. (Think just about any story hero you care to name.) And then it has to be recognised in the boy by a circle of elders, and by ‘his people’ back home.

Is Kingfisher Project part of some kind of cult?!

No. We impose neither religious rules nor spiritual agendas. We follow no leader. As in many traditional cultures, we think in terms of circles, not hierarchies - looking for co-operation, consensus and agreement within the group rather than a ruling from above.

Is there a follow-up?

At the end of the rites of passage weekend, each participant will experience a different and personal return to ordinary life. While the team will make a point of grounding and settling all participants before they go home, we have not developed follow-up sessions. That said, new friendships and connections are likely to be forged, and a large proportion of participants will turn up at further events - as men.

Is there anything like this available for teenage girls?

One organisation we are in conversation with and can recommend is Rites for Girls (www.ritesforgirls.com). They enhance the mental well-being of girls and women preventatively, using early intervention, and by supporting in crisis. Girls Journeying Together groups offer a year of in-person monthly support for preteen girls. Girls’ Net provides guidance and camaraderie through times of challenge to small groups of same-age girls (aged 8-18) in weekly online sessions over 6 weeks. 

Where is Cae Mabon?

Address:  Cae Mabon, Fachwen, Llanberis, Gwynedd, Wales LL55 3HB UK

Grid Reference: SH 579613 IR