The men from Uncle making a difference in boys' lives

A mentoring project for boys with absent fathers is struggling to stay afloat, writes Saffron Howden. When Luke Chamberlain's father died suddenly of a heart attack while surfing near Byron Bay two years ago, the nine-year-old was left with his twin sisters and a loving mother. It wasn't enough. He needed a male guide: someone to take him hiking, camping and surfing; someone to talk about cars, movies, sport and girls.

An uncle was the obvious choice - and Uncle, a unique community group that for nearly 15 years has helped hundreds of boys with absent or fickle fathers find adult male mentors, provided just that. "There's a lot of boys growing up without father figures around; some of them are slack, some of them have left, some have gone off with other women," Uncle's chief executive, Mark Gasson, said. "[Uncle is] never a replacement for a dad, but it's someone in their life that they can call and say, 'I'm having this crisis."