Every summer Kenny Braun stops working. Summer is the time to return to country, to fulfil ceremony, to spend time with family and Elders, and to renew the relationships that have sustained his people for generations.
“Country is my power. It underpins who I am as a person.”
Years ago, while living in New South Wales, Kenny climbed a hill near his home and introduced himself to the ancestors of that place. “I’m just visiting,” he said. “My name’s Kenny. I’m here to do my work.” He lived there for 10 years. He bought a house. He built a life. But, he says simply, it was never home.
“This is my country. This is my Apmere.”(Editor’s note: Apmere or pmere is the Arrernte Aboriginal word for place, country, land, camp, region, home, carrying multiple layers of meaning as Aboriginal concepts of land are connected with identity and spirituality.)
That sense of belonging is more than personal. It explains almost everything about the work Kenny now does with Aboriginal young men in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), a town in the Northern Territory, Australia.
Officially, he coordinates the Alkupitja Atnerre On Country Learning Program that supports young men at risk of disengaging from school, employment, or becoming involved with the justice system. The program provides mentoring, practical support, cultural camps, and pathways into education and work.
But after listening to Kenny for several hours, it becomes obvious that the program itself is not really the story; the story is about belonging, it is about identity. Above all, it is about helping young Aboriginal people learn to live confidently in two worlds.
“The underlying thing is if your youth can just live in both worlds,” says Kenny.
It is a phrase he returns to repeatedly, and each time it seems to gather more meaning. Living in two worlds is not about choosing between Aboriginal culture and modern Australia. It is not assimilation. Nor is it retreat into tradition. It is learning to move confidently between both without surrendering either.
“It’s a fine line,” he reflects. “We can easily fall off the line on either side.”
The government systems Kenny helps young people navigate can seem bewildering. Schools, employers, Centrelink, housing agencies, courts – they all expect confidence and independence. Yet many of the young men he meets have spent years being spoken for, judged, or excluded.
One story that captures Kenny’s approach perfectly was when he took a young man to a Centrelink appointment. The young man sat silently beside him, expecting Kenny to answer every question.
“You talk,” the young man whispered. “No,” Kenny replied. “You talk. This is your life.”
The young man hesitated. He stumbled through the conversation. Kenny resisted every temptation to step in. He accompanied him to the next appointment and the next. Eventually the young man walked into Centrelink alone. Later he came back and thanked Kenny.
“I was too ashamed,” he admitted. Kenny smiled, “That’s part of being an adult now.”
The exchange might seem small, almost insignificant. Yet Kenny sees moments like these as turning points. Confidence cannot be handed to someone. It has to be practiced.
His philosophy is uncomplicated. “Don’t baby them. Empower them.”
Many social programs are measured by the number of services delivered. Kenny measures success differently. If a young person learns to speak for himself, keeps an appointment, turns up for work or begins to believe he belongs in spaces that once frightened him, that is progress.
The practical support still matters. Sometimes he drives young people to appointments, helps them obtain identification or connects them with counselling. But every practical task is also an opportunity to build independence rather than dependence. Confidence, however, comes from more than learning how to navigate government systems; it also comes from knowing where you belong.
One afternoon Kenny took a group of young men onto country. They all came for different reasons. Some had become disconnected from school, others from family and some had little knowledge of their own cultural history.
Standing on the land where one of Kenny’s grandfathers was born, he began telling stories. Among the group was a young relative, Kenny pointed across the country. “This is your great-great-grandfather’s country.” The young man stopped, “What?”
He never heard that story before, he never stood on that country knowing it belonged to his family. He then understood that the landscape held his own history. Kenny still remembers watching him, the sense of surprise and joy on his face.
It is easy to underestimate moments like these. For many Australians, family history can be traced through photo albums, documents and cemeteries. For many Aboriginal families, generations of displacement have interrupted those connections.
Some young people know remarkably little about where they come from. Kenny believes reconnecting them with country is not an optional cultural activity. It is central to helping them imagine a future. Identity creates confidence and confidence creates possibility. That is why culture sits at the heart of everything he does.
He tells young men that alcohol is not their culture; violence against women is not their culture. Looking after old people is part of the culture; respect and responsibility.
The old people, he says, were strong because they knew who they were. Modern life demands different skills, but those values remain the same. Young people still need to walk into classrooms, workplaces and government offices, carrying the confidence that comes from culture rather than leaving it behind.
Kenny does not expect them all to remain in Central Australia.“Go and live in Melbourne, Sydney,” he says. “Do your stuff.”
But wherever they go, they should know where home is. He points to his own son, studying physiotherapy at university while returning home each holiday to work in the community. His son moves naturally between Aboriginal and non-Indigenous worlds, helping each understand the other. That, Kenny believes, is what success looks like – not abandoning one world for another, but building bridges between them.
Kenny says he spends as much time educating adults as he does mentoring young people.
Employers sometimes ring him because an Aboriginal apprentice has missed work. Others assume the worst before giving someone a chance; Kenny asks them to pause before making judgments. Sometimes a young person has not turned up because there were 20 people in the house the night before. Sometimes family responsibilities overwhelm everything else.
Understanding context is not lowering expectations, but creating the conditions for success. He wants employers to build relationships rather than stereotypes. “If he doesn’t turn up,” Kenny tells them, “give me a call.” He will find out what happened. He will also make sure the young man understands his responsibilities.
The same bridging role extends beyond workplaces. During a recent march of the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC), he found himself walking beside a senior police officer. She asked about his work. “The solution is not to lock them up,” Kenny told her. To his surprise, she agreed.
Police, she explained, often lack safe places to take vulnerable young people. Too many young people on the streets are there because home itself is unsafe. The conversation confirmed something Kenny has long believed. Systems matter, housing matters, infrastructure matters, but relationships matter just as much.
Again and again he finds himself translating one world to another – helping employers understand Aboriginal realities while helping young Aboriginal men understand the expectations of employers. Neither side succeeds without the other, and living in two worlds means both worlds have something to learn.
Some mornings begin with a phone call from a single mother. “My son won’t go to school.” Kenny drives over. He speaks firmly but respectfully. The young man gets in the car. There is no miracle, just another day, another conversation and another chance.
Other conversations are harder. More than once a young man has looked at Kenny and quietly said, “I wish you were my dad.”
Those words still affect him. He knows many of the youth grew up without fathers or consistent male role models. He cannot become their father, nor does he try. What he can do is connect them with good men, Elders, and cultural mentors who demonstrate another way of living.
Sometimes success is heartbreaking. A father spends years in prison; his son grows up wanting to be just like him. Eventually the son goes to prison too.
Cycles like these are difficult to break, yet Kenny refuses to surrender to despair. When he first meets a young person, he lets them talk, only then does he ask about family. “Who’s your mob?” Almost immediately connections emerge. “Oh, I knew your grandfather.” “I played football with your uncle,” and the distance disappears, trust begins.
For Kenny, mentoring starts long before advice. It starts with relationship. By the end of our conversation he returns once more to the idea that has threaded through every story.
He and the other men who work alongside him are initiated men. They carry cultural authority, they fulfil ceremony, they hunt and they sing their songs on country. Then they come back into town, drive cars, attend meetings, navigate bureaucracy, raise families and go to work. “That’s the reality of the world now,” Kenny says.
Aboriginal people do not have to choose between ancient culture and contemporary Australia. The challenge is learning to stand securely in both.
If Kenny can help one young man do that – find confidence in his identity while walking comfortably through the modern world – then, he says, it has been a good day.
In the end, that is the quiet ambition beneath everything he does. Not simply to keep young men out of trouble or help them find jobs, but to help them discover that they already belong and help them live in both worlds.
The conversation with Kenny Braun was facilitated through Jesuit Social Services that introduced Kenny to Pedro Walpole SJ (middle in the photo) and who visited Alice Springs in July 2026 to connect directly with First Peoples and deepen his understanding of the challenges of extreme heat and climate change in the region. Pedro is the Coordinator of the River Above Asia Oceania Ecclesial Network (RAOEN) and Director for Research at the Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC), a Jesuit organization in the Philippines. Based in Mindanao in the southern part of the Philippines, Pedro works at the intersection of environmental science and social justice across the Asia Pacific region. He is currently collaborating with Jesuit Social Services on a series of online learning engagements for young Indigenous people across Oceania and Asia Pacific in the lead-up to COP31.