our story
Canberra Men's Centre began in 1992 as Murringu Canberra, operating a twice-weekly evening drop-in for men from a small upstairs room in St John's Church in Reid, ACT. The initial intention was to provide a meeting place where men with particular needs could be helped to access the supports they needed, which at the time were seen in terms of counselling or advice. Founding members, some of whom were psychologists or had training in counselling, saw the drop-in as a means to:
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give men opportunities to explore personal issues and circumstances in a context which challenged the limitations of men's socialisation in a patriarchal culture;
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give men a place to develop new and more supportive peer networks founded on the values of positive respect for and commitment to men, these values being shaped and informed by emerging ideas about new roles for men;
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engage men who were resistant to acknowledging problems or seeking help from community services or individual professionals; and
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help men transition to counselling as a form of support that they would previously have been reluctant to utilise.
These foundational values and an abiding interest in men's issues underpinned our evolution from a small-scale voluntary peer support activity into the Canberra Men's Centre as it is today. After a few years with no income and the pressures of reliance on volunteer support taking its toll, the founding members moved on and membership of the Association and Board changed. This freed us to explore the possibilities around targetting services to a broader range of men and meeting a broader range of needs, with changes in direction being driven by newer members coming from the community service sector, where there is a stronger focus on services to the disadvantaged.
In 1999, Murringu employed its first part-time coordinator (17 hours), and in 2002 created a part-time (10.5 hrs) counsellor's position and commenced its first dedicated service for disadvantaged members of the ACT community, working with residents at Ainslie Village to help them access community services outside of the Ainslie Village campus. The Association (Murringu Canberra) decided in that same year to change its name to Canberra Men's Centre as part of a strategy to break with the past and sidestep any ongoing confusion or ambiguity about the organisation and its new vision. This has been a pivotal step, demanding that we first revisit and reshape our vision and purpose internally, then put our money where our collective mouth is by taking the new organisation out into the community where we can be judged for the quality of the services we provide.
The Meeting Tree
The decision to change the service's name to Canberra Men's Centre didn't mean an absolute break with the past, as members involved in developing the new vision and direction felt the organisation's history should be acknowledged in some way. It was decided to continue using the image of the 'meeting tree' from Murringu's masthead to recognise the organisation's early efforts to make a place for men to come together in support of each other.
