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Ji'Kinam Blog

What is Ji’Kinam?

Over two decades, many thousands of us dads have learned from each other in workshops in communities across the nation and increasingly overseas. Each man is inspired by the example of the others, and feels an innate challenge to do as well. We are better dads for it, a beautiful payoff for us and our families.

We have also seen many millions of dads of all types respond to their innate drive to do their best for their kids, and the challenge set by fathers around them. We also noticed that, while we men thrive on respect, it is in short supply for fathers, especially the new guys.

We wanted to broaden the sense of “brotherhood” we feel to all such men to strengthen our mutual learning and inspiration, help gain the respect on-the-job dads deserve, and ultimately bring all of our “brothers” into the fold so that failure as a father is no longer an option. And we want to do this around the world so the one we dads turn over to our children will be better than what we have now. We are on a mission to make the world a better place for all of our kids, and we are going to need some help.

The problem was finding a name that reflects this notion. We recently found it in a rural Canadian aboriginal village. We learned from this traditional village’s dads how fatherhood has worked for millenniums - men working together- and that drums are a great tool for calming a fussy baby.

Ji’Kinam is their name for brother.

Tagged in: Our Manifesto • Respecting Fatherhood