Men as Allies: Swaggerzine

Swaggerzine/ Men as Allies is the sprout that fell from my brain and blossomed into everything that you all see today. I feel a strong and genuine connection with the program and the webzine because I've been with it since it's birth in 2007. Initially, I felt that young men should talk, change, and display their thoughts to make the world aware and we hadn't been given the opportunity to do so. I never thought that a little idea that filled my mind would become a tremendous movement. It began with a mere conversation. I felt ostracized and misrepresented. I thought that no one cared about males; all the programs I saw only helped females. Felicia Rose Chavez challenged me to change this. She paired me with Avery R. Young, a teaching and performing artist who worked with gender consciousness, and the rest was history. We wrote a grant. Waited for a response. Then, we were elated when we got money to fund the program. Since then, I have been really making an effort to grow into a progressive mindset and to find my voice. It is my desire that my work will help others young males for years to come to define themselves and challenge the prototypes displayed in the media. Swaggerzine is the face and the voice for those who wish to reeducate and recompose themselves to evoke change in the world.