The numbers are poignant. In North-Western Europe men make up the biggest part of victims and perpetrators of violence. They are overrepresented in prisons, in homelessness, in addiction. Every year thousands of men commit suicide – way more than women – and often in silence, without anybody seeing it coming. In distressing high percentages fathers lose contact with their children after a divorce. Boys lose terrain in education and grow estranged from meaning and direction in life. What does all of this say about how we as a society treat masculinity?

These symptoms point to a deeper cause: loss of direction, identity and connectedness. The traditional role of the man – provider, protector, leader – has crumbled fast, without new, sustainable forms to take their place. A lot of men feel superfluous, unseen or empty inside. Societies progress has given the man freedom, but without an anchor. No answer to the question: Who am I, really, as a man?

For centuries every culture had its transition rituals for boys growing into men. These rituals, often physically, mentally and spiritually intense, had a clear goal: letting go of the child-self and taking on responsibility for the bigger picture. A boy got to know his fears, to feel his strengths, to find his place in the community. Without initiation a boy stays imprisoned in an immature relationship to the world – sometimes dominant and controlling, sometimes reclusive and absent, but rarely rooted firmly.

In our modern, secular, individualised society these initiation rituals have disappeared. No longer are there structural moments in which a man is welcomed into the mature world with the message: “You are part of us. We are counting on you. And we support you.” The consequence is generations of men who never really arrived in their mature role. They wear a mask of strength or independence, hiding their insecurity, shame and longing for real connection.

What we’ve lost, we can restore – but it takes courage, commitment and space. Firemakers Foundation creates that space. In men circles, retreats and initiation programs men are invited to lay down their layers of protection and to remember who they really are. Not in isolation, but reflected by other men. Because it is in connection with brothers, in vulnerability, with recognition and acknowledgement, that the inner fire can be reignited.

Connection between men has a deep social value. When men feel seen and supported by other men, they feel less need to either prove or defend themselves. Less aggression, more compassion. Men who take responsibility for their inner landscape in different ways contribute to their relationships, their fatherhood, their work and their community. They are less prone to destructive escapes and more directed to healing and creation

The crisis of the modern man is rooted in our history. For centuries masculinity was connected to power, control, achievement. Men learned to suppress their emotions, hide their sensitivity, and measure themselves to external standards of success. This heritage of the patriarchic system has not only hurt women, but dehumanised men as well. Instead of embodied, feeling, conscious beings men became the wearers of a rigid suit – a harness that eventually pinches.

Today we see the result of this historical unbalance: a void many men get lost in. But in that emptiness there’s also an invitation: to return to a more complete form of masculinity. Not by repeating old pattern, but by transcending them – by again igniting the fire, as powerful as caring, as determined as sensitive.

Why is men’s work needed in North-Western Europe?

Because our society is at a tipping point. We have seen enough of the
destructive forms of masculinity, yet we don’t know enough of how to
do it differently. Men’s work offers a lively, practical and in-depth
path. Not as a therapy, but as transformation. Not as a correction,
but as a reminder: this is who you are. Complete. Real. Free.

This work isn’t luxury, not a marginal phenomenon. It is essential. For the wellbeing of men themselves, for the safety of their partners and children, and for the health of our society as a whole. A man who rediscovers his inner fire, becomes a beacon of stability in a world full of noise. He learns to be present. To feel. To carry. And that way he not only changes his own life, but the lives of the people around him as well.

Firemakers Foundation believes that every man has the right to rediscover his true nature. And that the world needs men who remember who they are.

That’s why we do this work.

That’s why it is necessary.