Rev Leon Jennings is a firm believer of the need for strong male figures in the household.

He remembers once playing for Bermuda’s Under-19 football squad when his dad turned up for a game. All of a sudden he was performing better and on a quest to make his father proud.

Unfortunately, not all young men have positive male role models in their lives.

Rev Jennings, along with the Young People’s Division at Vernon Temple AME, are hoping to change that.

The YPD recently launched a free, six-week programme called Saving Our Sons Academy. It aims to provide young males from age 12 to 18 with spiritual and practical tools to equip them for their future.

“During the programme we will be teaching them about things like carpentry, painting, plumbing and electrical work,” Rev Jennings explained. “And because we want them to be able to identify with us, we have also involved young people like Kevin Minors Jr, who is a brilliant young scholar who attended Oxford University. He will be one of the facilitators.

“We also have Lateef Trott helping out who is 19 years old and plays for the St George’s Cup Match team. He is also a preacher and works as an EMT. So there will be younger men who help to facilitate and older men who pass on their wisdom about life and their faith.”

Rev Jennings, who graduated from the Bermuda Hospitality School, plans to teach participants proper dining etiquette and how to set a table and make simple dishes like Caesar salad or fettuccine from scratch.

“Some of the lessons are aimed to teach them about self-confidence and help them to learn who they are so they won’t look to other negative influences to define them,” he said.

“We want them to know someone is there for them and willing to take time out to pore into their lives. That’s something they may not get otherwise.

“We want to be their positive role models rather than the guys sitting on a wall.”

A similar programme was started last year in AME churches in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Philadelphia and New England. So far the results have been “extremely positive”, Rev Jennings said. “The programme is going very well in the States particularly because they realised when they offered this outlet that people were more than willing to participate,” he said.

“They get a lot of calls from single mothers trying to raise their sons, who realise they need help, especially when it comes to preteen and teenage boys, with the absence of male role models in their lives. [This programme] becomes like a surrogate parent type thing. So we decided it would be an ‘adopt the sons’ type scheme, but of course making it conducive to Bermuda. There are some things we can do differently because it’s a small environment here.”

Rev Jennings got involved with men’s ministry more than two decades ago.

It was a role he pretty much “fell into” simply by being around the church.

“As I always tell people you can’t hang around water and not get wet,” he said.

“I started working in the office at the church on a voluntary basis and saw the need for men to be present in the lives of their children and just in the home because you could see the effects around everywhere we would go, where men weren’t present.

“But I wanted to fill that gap. Ezekiel said: ‘I sought for a man among them to stand in the gap before me ... but I found none.’

“I noticed that due to men not coming in the place that God wanted them to be in it impacted families and society as a whole. And I’m not just talking about African-Americans either — a lot of societies have these same issues.”

Rev Jennings was formally ordained by the AME Church 12 years ago.

His biggest passion? Teaching males how to rise to be the men God called them to be.

“Growing up young men tend to learn things like: ‘You don’t have to have just one woman, there are many fish in the sea’.

“We were taught a lot of wrong and now it’s just a matter or trying to correct some of those teachings.”

•Vernon Temple’s Saving Our Sons Academy will run every Thursday from July 9 to August 19 at 11.30am until 2.30pm. Lunch will be provided free of charge. To reserve a space call 238-1178 or e-mail vtame@northrock.bm