A d**khead shaves his head

Kia ora te whanau

My name is Benjamin. Im 28, i live in Auckland and i work in mental health.

Id like to start by telling you alittle bit about my childhood.

I am part of a family of 5. One loving Mother, whom I adore, and three brothers, my best friends. We are lucky to be able to share our lives together and engage in community, we dont always see eye to eye but i know we always have each other's backs. Mum has always been the empathetic, compassionate and loving person she still is today, but my old man was incredibly abusive. He was controlling, manipulative, deceptive and very physically abusive. Black eye/blood nose kind of guy i guess.

In many ways, i am grateful for my upbringing. My Mum was teaching me about love, grace, vulnerability and my old man was giving me a first-hand lesson of what people around the world endure every day. These two combined drive my passion for working with people in need.

Its been interesting revisiting my feeling on my father. I dont resent him, i just feel sorry for him. I wonder to myself, what happened in his childhood to drive him to make the choices he made.

Early next month, I'm going to shave my head in solidarity with young people in Aotearoa experiencing similar circumstances in which I grew up in.

The organizations ive chosen and BIG BUDDY and BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS.

Both charities provide an adult of the same sex to hang out with, go to play in the park, talk about what might be on the childs mind and generally be a positive force in their lives. My old man was kicked out of home when i was 15. I was blessed enough have several adults in my life that i could spend time with and talk shit with about life. The thought that some youths might now have access to that saddens me. So id like to support these organizations.

I used to work with at risk youth, knowing that the majority of their issues wouldnt have been there if they had a stable home is frustrating. This being said we need to look at the problem as a whole and not in isolation.

Ive chosen to donate to two organizations, the donations from this page will be split in half and ill upload a video showing the transition as well as the receipt. Im also planning on donating my hair (if its long enough) to make wigs for cancer patients, still need to look into this, any help appreciated!

Ill probably make a live facebook video of my head being shaved too. I know my Mum has a set of clippers. Mum if you're reading can you plz shave my head?

Eventually, id like to look into being a big buddy myself

A few stretch goals:

1: If we can raise 300 in the next two weeks ill dye my hair a wacky color a week before i shave it. You decide.

2: If we can raise 750 ill shave my mustache

3: If we get to 1000 ill tattoo my head before i start growing it back.