Youth Explosion

So when my recruiter asked me how I'd feel walking through a village and constantly being greeted as if I was a celebrity. She asked me how I'd feel if they wanted to hold my hand and let them follow me. For many who know me from back home--that is a tough one to answer nicely, but I sucked it up and said sure, why not.

Since then, those very things have indeed come to pass and I've learned that I'm really not so bothered with it. Well most of them are alright and they do indeed call out to me as if I am some sort of neighborhood celebrity. Several do like holding my hand and one even calls me her best friend--of course that stops as soon as I tell her she can't use the computers.

What I wasn't prepared to deal with was running youth groups. My official title role is NGO/Institution developer, which seems to suggest a wide variety of duties. It really means be ready to do just about anything. Our PC training covered several major topics, but in my opinion was preparing us to deal with youth--not sure if it was even meant to do that either. So with little formal youth training and limited youth group experience, I quickly found myself immersed in activities I admit I started for the kids of Spring Village. From after school studies to the ECHO drum and dance crew, they have become a part of my regular schedule here.

Now I've been a boy scout and afterwards a boy scout leader. I suppose the big difference between the experiences then and now is the activity structure & participation. Back then, there were many adult leaders to divide up the work, organize the boys, and keep things running smoothly. The boy scout program was well established and had systems in place to help those leaders stick to a general framework and activity guide. Here, for the most part it's been dicey.

I've been very fortunate to find a couple people here in the village that are interested in the remedial reading part of the after school studies program and I'm grateful for them. Still we find ourselves stumbling along as we try to develop our methods & programs--without much support from the local school environment. ECHO has been a mixed bag. On one hand, there is some great support outside the village from another drummer--but he is a very busy person and hard to reach for the times ECHO will meet. Adult support for ECHO here in Spring is limited as best, although the youth coming to the meetings has been growing weekly. Now I'm faced with a group that has become perhaps too large and I've been unable to control.

Despite the size of the group, I find some of the youth are getting very good at knocking me from my center and I find myself rekindling aggressive urges. This is something that needs to be stopped now. It took me a long time to find the quiet inside and uncover a well-spring of patience. Most days I can undergo most rigors and not be bothered, yet some of these activities are starting to find quick ways to unnerve me. So I'm at a cross-roads and currently sitting back chewing on the idea of which road to walk.

One road follows an extreme change to discontinue these youth activities altogether. Doing so would allow me to focus more intently on other projects, such as the village council and teaching computers. I often find myself wondering if/how they might last without me after service anyways--given that I've been continually searching for others (adults) to help supervise activities such as ECHO.

Another road would be to either divide the groups into smaller chunks or eliminate some of the youth from attending. Both have their own merits and flaws. By splitting the kids into smaller groups, I would be able to manage them more effectively and they would be able to share some of the limited resources (like the drums) better. However, I don't have any extra time during the week to bulk up on the number of ECHO meetings I can have, so the kids would have to settle on coming to a biweekly instead of a weekly session (each group would alternate weeks). This in-turn slows their learning progression skill development for performance-based activities. By eliminating some of the kids from the youth activity, then I would have to specify/select how many kids I will keep active and how many should be dismissed. I can already see that to be a sticky situation, trying to find fair methods to select a few and be able to rationalize to community parents why I all of a sudden told their children they can't participate regardless of how well they might have behaved.

The third road walks the path of the wait and see. Stick it out a bit longer and see if any other opportunities present themselves. It is nice to remain optimistic and try to keep driving others in the community to get involved, but reality takes its toll and I worry about changes in my personal attitude/behavior. While this road is a nice thought--it will probably remain a thought.

In the end, I accept the fact that I made an awfully big sandwich and am currently taking big bites out of it. In hindsight, I'm not sure if I would have really been able to make a smaller sandwich or if I would have just had to go without one. But the day moves forward and I've got some plans to consider. It would have been so much easier if I would have had a functioning CBO to work with when I arrived as it should have been--but we make due with what we have and move onward making the best of things.

Stay well and happy
ciao tutti
~your local wannabe jedi
~Shawn