something in myself lift just knowing that a place like YIP existed. I had found a direction to move in. It took two years to fundraise, save, and apply. I invested that time in completely re-orientating my life and focused on continuously asking what my contribution might be. In spring 2013, I received an acceptance letter and that fall I was on my way to Ytterjärna, Sweden, the anthroposophic campus where YIP takes place. From the first moments I stepped foot into our student house, I could feel I was exactly where I needed to be. I lived and learned under the same roof with 19 other participants from around the world. We quite literally did everything together, learning about possibilities that lie within community living and building. Conflict became a space of deep learning, instead of a space to avoid, as we navigated through the joys and challenges of our year together. I realized how thirsty I was to be in a learning environment that welcomed me. One day could encompass singing, body movement, writing, and getting our hands in the dirt. An educational environment that took my whole being into consideration gave me confidence to believe in myself. I was able to witness, through my own and my peers’ unfolding, the importance of valuing different ways of learning. For the first time since my childhood an excitement for my future began to move through me. My YIP year was pivotal, my first experience coming into contact with my truest expression as a human being. Today I am a facilitator for my own project called “Earth Is `Ohana,” where I get to pay forward my learnings from this cherished year. There is not a single day that I do not draw from the invaluable tool kit that this program made available to me. I am living my life’s work because of the support that the YIP organization and program provided me. There will never be enough ways to say, “Thank you.” Kailea Frederick is a First Nations woman dedicated to supporting individuals of all cultures in remembering their ties to the earth. Growing up off the grid in Maui, Hawai`i, forever imprinted in her the importance of reciprocity through indigenous world-view. She feels raised by wild spaces and intimately tied to Honua, our island earth. Earth Is `Ohana is Kailea’s personal response to the many stories that continue to shape her. You can learn more about her work at www.earthisohana.com and about YIP at www.yip.se
YIP 2008 to present by Lauryn Witco (Morley) After two years of dry college lectures and empty written assignments, I realized I was tasting an education that wasn’t nourishing me. The world is full of confrontation, challenges, and suffering. I was asking questions and looking for my place to make a difference. The International Youth Initiative Program (YIP) was my answer. The underlying philosophy, anthroposophy, that floated YIP was new to me. I was stunned by the architecture, food, and nature-based environment in which the program operated. The other participants, though strangers at first, were recognizable. They were fellow seekers, questioners, and doers. The time of swallowing questions rather than seeking their answers was over for me. There is a kind of inner conflict that occurs during opportunities of growth—when you get to choose if you will continue as things have always been, or make a change. Sometimes life will shake you to make those changes and sometimes the initiation for change needs to be sought out. I sought this change for years before discovering YIP. I felt strongly that I had untapped capacities and unshaped ideas that could be a benefit to my community, perhaps one day even to the world. The forty youths in the program lived together, with guiding lights from the courageous organizers and international teachers. Together we tackled difficult subjects spring issue 2018 • 19