About Us
MAIN is a response by a number of men to what we see as an absence of social, psychological, and solidarity networks for men in Dublin.
The idea for MAIN evolved from a chance meeting between three men in a Dublin City pub in February 2006. We didn’t really know each other, except in passing. Then one night, we just started talking. We discovered we had much in common. We were unemployed at the time, living alone in private rented accommodation and were all over forty. We soon realised we were in a zone without any tangible support system - except each other. We met once a week and got serious about addressing real issues and building a group that could reach out to other men.
MAIN has since gone from strength to strength, supported by a major report into the needs of socially excluded men in the Inner City - 'Own Goals and Penalties'. This was launched in Spring 2008 with a keynote address from Joe Higgins.
Today, we offer one-to-one and group support, including our 'Stepping Stones' personal development course which has helped dozens of men improve their situations.
We recently began several exciting new projects, which include producing a TV series about men's issues.
Our name
When the group began, we wanted to come up with a suitable name that expressed our situation. We asked ourselves three basic questions: “Who were we”? “What were we?” and “Where were we?”
'Who?' was easy - MEN, ordinary men in a common situation.
'What?' - we were living in relative isolation; somehow, somewhere we had become detached from the wider community. We were ALONE.
'Where?' - we looked at our relationship to the rest of society. All three of us had been forced to stop working on health grounds and we felt stuck between the boundaries of service provision. We were wounded men who needed to rely on each for support. We felt we were IN NO-MAN’S LAND. A dictionary definition for this term is: “a land between two boundaries, an unoccupied zone between opposing forces, an unclaimed piece of ground, an ambiguous area of activity or thought".
We see MAIN as a place of refuge, a place where battle weary men go to get out of the storm and regroup.
Target Group
MAIN caters for men over the age of 18 years who, for any number of reasons, find themselves in a situation of helplessness, isolation, alienation and hopelessness. As traditional models of masculinity break down, many men feel they have nowhere to go and find themselves separated from family, the wider community and other forms of social networks and support. These traditional models of masculinity are often a major barrier to men seeking help, making them one of the hardest social groups to reach.