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Oakton's Men's Program

For Oakton Students: Scholarships to attend Men’s Day are available. Interested students are encouraged to contact Bea Cornelissen, Office of College Advancement (Room 1144, Des Plaines campus), 847-635-1812 to apply for a Men’s Day Scholarship.

Hope, Healing, and Community
Malidoma Patrice Somé, Ph.D.

Among the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso, in West Africa, no distinction is drawn between the natural and the supernatural. The living converse with the dead, and those who are able routinely travel to other worlds. Even before his birth, Malidoma Somé was destined to address the spiritual needs of the modern world through indigenous technologies.

Abducted as a small boy, Somé was taken to a mission school where he spent 15 years in harsh indoctrination to the ways of European thought and worship. Returning to his village, he faced a shamanic initiation so rigorous that it might have killed him. Instead, his successful passage set Somé on a mission to share his tribe’s ancestral knowledge with cultures that have become disconnected from the richnes
of communal life.

Malidoma Somé is a gifted medicine man and diviner, as well as a compelling teacher. He holds three master’s degrees and two doctorates from the Sorbonne and Brandeis University, and is the author of several books including Ritual: Power, Healing and Community: Healing Wisdom of Africa; and his acclaimed autobiography, Of Water and the Spirit.