LIHUE — There are two things from last year’s Kauai Men’s Conference that Fire Chief Robert Westerman still clearly remembers. The first is that no one left early. “This is football Saturday. They stayed,” he said. “They were engaged the
LIHUE — There are two things from last year’s Kauai Men’s Conference that Fire Chief Robert Westerman still clearly remembers.
The first is that no one left early.
“This is football Saturday. They stayed,” he said. “They were engaged the whole time.”
The second, and key to the entire day, was when two men sat face to face, talking story.
“Two totally different cultures and they were really engaged in the conversation,” Westerman said. “And that’s what it’s all about. You can’t do it alone.”
Men, he said, are at ease when it comes talking about work, sports, or cars. But relationships? Feelings? Matters of the heart? Those are subjects that have most guys hiding in fear in the garage.
It shouldn’t be that way, and it hopefully won’t be that way during Saturday’s Kauai Men’s Conference at Smith’s Tropical Paradise.
The gathering, said organizer Brian Alston, is a chance for men to learn to “be brothers to one another, help one another to raise the bar, be role models in our family and in our community.”
To do that well, “Men need to spend time among men,” he said.
The free conference is 8 a.m to 2 p.m. It includes guest speakers, breakout sessions for men to meet in smaller groups, lunch, a resource guide and a “toolkit of knowledge” for men to improve their relationships with other men, with women, and with children. It is open to men 18 and over.
“I wish I had some of these tools when I was a young father,” Westerman said.
About 125 attended the first Kauai Men’s Conference last year, and about 150 are expected this year.
The event is put on by the Kauai Fatherhood Council and the County of Kauai and really came about at the vision of Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. in 2015, said Alston.
“He wanted to pull Kauai men together to talk story,” Alston said. “That jump-started it.”
The mission of the Kauai Fatherhood Council is to encourage male presence and male involvement in Kauai’s families and community, the mayor wrote.
That can be difficult, the Fatherhood Council notes, because “Many men often feel isolated and uncomfortable to reach out and ask for support or even know what kind of support they may need in difficult times.”
Saturday’s conference looks to give men help.
The Fatherhood Council is a group of volunteers that includes Mark Jeffers, executive director of Talk Story Theatre of Hawaii, which provided financial support to the conference.
He witnessed the benefits of last year’s conference; he saw changes in men there.
“It had a tremendous effect,” Jeffers said. “It was kind of like a rock in a pond. All the people that participated, there was a lot of energy there.”
Alston said in conversations after the conference, some men told him it was the first time ever, or first in a long time, they had talked with other men about issues impacting them, personal issues that come with being a husband, a father, a son.
“They didn’t know others were going through it, too,” Alston said.
And one wife of a man who attended told Alston later: “My husband never talks like this.”
Westerman, another volunteer, said when it comes to men just sitting down with other men and having a conversation, to just share about their lives and challenges they face, “there is a hole in the community.”
“We’re trying to fill that puka,” he said.
In his efforts with the homeless and Head Start, Alston said what is often missing is a father figure.
Men will find, Jeffers said, they are not alone in trying to determine their roles at home, at work, in the community.
“Society has changed, and we need to help men change with society,” he said.
To register, visit www.eventbrite.com and search for “Kauai Men’s Conference,” or just show up.
