Brother to Another gives young men choices beyond the cycle of offending
Brother to Another founder Jye Cardona has spent enough time in and around youth detention facilities to know locking kids up creates more crime than it prevents…
Time behind bars at a young age is a serious risk factor for life-long reoffending.
Australia locks up Indigenous youth at 29 times the rate of non-Indigenous youth.
In the Territory, around 97 per cent of incarcerated youths are Aboriginal, and around half are being held on remand, meaning they have not been convicted of or sentenced for any crime.
The youth worker – a Kungarakan man from the Northern Territory – founded charity Brother to Another after hosting voluntary after-hours sessions in Don Dale where kids told him they want support and mentoring from local First Nations men.
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Brother to Another is about getting to the root causes of offending behaviour and giving kids the tools to make better choices.
Jye believes that giving young people the power to make their own choices is the first step to helping them make better choices.
“I started going into Don Dale on Wednesday nights with a backpack of eight different activities and … the whole idea was the young mob in that block at the time could decide what activity we would be doing,” says Jye.
“It’s quite simple but it comes back to empowerment. Kids in detention – often because of the environment they have grown up in and what they’ve experienced – they don’t necessarily realise they have a choice in matters. Opening their eyes to that can change things for them for the better.”
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Over the past four years, Jye and his Brother to Another colleagues – all First Nations men – have supported young men to turn their lives around.
Alongside prison visits Brother to Another operates a Darwin hub where youth, their peer group, as well as their families, can attend. The program extends to former youth offenders, those residing in supported bail accommodation, as well as young men at risk of becoming disengaged from family, community, and education.
Beyond mentoring, it provides strategic supports to families, access to a gym, arts and crafts, yarning circles, native gardening, a shed for work experience, hot-desk computer for life admin tasks, and employment and training support.
Kids in detention… they don’t necessarily realise they have a choice in matters. Opening their eyes to that can change things for them for the better.
Jye Cardona, Brother to Another founder
Instead of having adults decide everything for them, participants have options to choose what to cook, which art project to start, or what game to play, themselves.
This puts kids in control of their own lives, building confidence to tackle bigger challenges.
“See the big sign out the front of our Hub – that was made by one of our young guys while he was on a work experience placement,” Jye says.
“He’s now got a full-time job with that same company for the next three months and he’s doing really well.
That’s what success looks like.