What is your ministry, church or business, agency or organization doing to reach the MEN in Belize and do you really understand the problem?
For many years we have been hearing about the plight of men in Belize. It is the MEN that are marginalized and have lack of access to programs for a variety of reasons. The BEST way to help the women and children is to empower the MEN and turn them into Godly leaders able and willing to marry and minister to the women and children in their lives and communities. Some reasons men are not succeeding:
No birth paper
No social
No police record or bad police record
No bank account
Limited Job Opportunities which is the biggest one
also
Dropped out of school at a young age to hustle to provide for family
Lack of skills and lack of access to training
Having skills but not having documentation to properly work
LACK OF JOBS (and this is a big one) There are many many trained tour guides, boat captains, barbers, welders, plumbers, electricians, a/c technicians, auto mechanics etc that have training but NO JOBS or people won't hire them due to criminal history or negative news reports even though they have been found innocent.
Inability to go to offices to get things like birth paper, social, police record, government services, counselling or training due to present or former gang affiliation and many have hits on them or because the office is in gang territory.
What is YOUR ministry doing to reach the MEN other than some monthly men's meeting or fathers day event? Let's hear what is working.
What effort have you made to reach the FATHERS of the kids you work with to empower them to be good providers and protectors?
What have you done to CREATE JOBS for MEN...not just give them skills training.
What loan and start up funds do you have available to MEN to help them start businesses
What land programs are you providing to do sharecropping or other programs
What businesses have you started to CREATE JOBS for MEN?
What one on one mentorship are you doing with them spiritually to provide accountability and direction since it is well established that men who are down and out do not feel welcome in church and even if they were welcome they would not come due to bad experience in the past or having hits on them and not wanting bring violence into church environment to protect others.
In short, what are you doing to reach the MEN. Let's hear what is working and what is not or is it true what they say that missionaries only care about women and children because that is what I hear from them ALL the time.
There are 842 identified men in gangs in Belize City and many have the issues stated above
There are probably about 1500 men in gang in Belize city (IDB)
There are most likely 5000 men in gangs nationwide
about 47% if the MEN are OVER age 30 so youth programs WILL NOT SOLVE THIS! Not to mention that older men are much more serious about change than younger men.
Belize has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world. https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/belize/safety-and-security
Crime Statistics are available at this link STUDY them and ask yourself how your ministry can impact change and create citizen security.
IDB report on Gangs in Belize
I know the answer. The answer it to focus 80% of all human, physical and spiritual resources on MEN and for ALL missionaries to switch focus and either directly reach the men or work on reaching the FATHERS and UNCLES and GRANDFATHERS of the children they work with.
For 200 years missions in Belize has focused on women and children. There are over 300 ministries in Belize and only 6 have a focus on working with men (Hedges, Belize VoTech, Trades for Life and Remar and Jacobs Farm and Country Barn)
Nearly all GOB support systems are for WOMEN. There is domestic violence support for women, skills training for women and skills training for YOUNG men but only if they go to the office to register and the ones doing the killing stealing and destroying cannot do that because of the office are located in gang territory and they can get killed if they go into that territory.
There are no loan programs or grants or skills training at all for men over age 30 unless they pay and no scholarships available for them.
Leave the 99.
Luke 15
Are men giving up?