Community Celebrations!
Leading to Educo Community Open House and South Cariboo Community CafÊ, the Little Britches Parade and Streetfest as well as a Mentorship Day at Educo Adventure School was an excellent opportunity to connect with people and organizations engaged in leadership and youth in the community. Despite the cold and a little rain, that didn’t seem to dampen spirits.
High above on the high ropes, Brandon, 14 years old, ensures I am clipped on properly to traverse in between the trees. I found myself pushed beyond my comfort zone but with the support and motivation of my experienced leader, Brodie, as well as trusting in my buddy, when accomplished I felt a deep sense of gratification. It was a fascinating experience and I would do it again.
We also highly encouraged kids and adults to draw their favorite things to do living in the South Cariboo. Can’t draw? No problem...just write it.
We are noticing that the issues youth and communities face nowadays are becoming more complex. How can we help? As adults we have the advantage of wisdom and we can use this knowledge to motivate and inspire youth. At these events, we asked a few people the following question:
How do you as an adult motivate and inspire youth in the community? “I like to invite my granddaughter to come out and read or play cards with me. I know she likes it, she always wants to come back”. “Find out what they are interested in, what makes them excited. Let them show you what it is and you’ll see that glow in their eyes. Then you know it’s something they really like.” “Let them make decisions where they will feel empowered.” “I have been to Educo and have always asked myself why we can’t get every student to do this. I teach in the Alternate Program at PSO. The Alternate is a program available to students who need an opportunity to improve their emotional health, social skills, and academic performance so they can meet their goals; re-enter the regular school system, undertake other training, and/or gain employment. We need more Educo days…I would like to see more programs where we can provide them the opportunity and motivation to focus their lives and develop the confidence, skills, intellectual ability, spiritual insight and moral integrity to become responsible and productive members of society.” “We set goals for ourselves, help them set goals and attain them. Make them fun, little steps at a time and encourage them. They will feel proud of themselves.”
The most popular were camping, swimming, playing hockey, cross-country ski, watching movies, dancing, and being at home with their family. We reached and invited as many as 100 organizations who are engaged in leadership and youth in the community to come out with families and friends to the Open House & Community Café to connect in conversations about empowering
young people as well as play games, challenge themselves, and have fun. Posters celebrating the event were posted in town and the news was being blown through the South Cariboo.
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May 30 , 2010 Educo Community Open House and South Cariboo Community Café
to start the games. Everyone gathered in a huge circle to play, connect, explore and play some more.
Early morning… you can hear humming and singing, our smiling leaders are getting ready for the day. From cleaning the kitchen, pumping water & filling up the blue jugs, cleaning and refreshing the outhouses, setting up the “Rec Hall”, ensuring proper signage is up and all equipment for the activities are safe to go. Many families, more than 100 children, youth, and adults came out to explore the beautiful Educo site, meet the staff, try the high ropes and climbing wall, go for a paddle on our lake, and share good local food.
WE had the privilege of having Trish Chung and a group of young women from community kitchen create a savory home-cooked lunch for everyone. Once waivers were signed, Dave, our dynamic facilitator welcomed everyone & we were good
This then led us into the “Rec Hall” to hear the “Ninja & Strawberry” story where the whole crowd was following the Ninja Stu, Educo’s Executive Director. We each have a message to bring to the world, something we have learned from our unique life experience. A story is a way of sharing meaning and values, and a method for building trust and community. It made me think of this quote:
You can see that everyone is having fun no matter the gender, age or culture.
“The fact is that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.” Robert Cushing
We were then asked to play with colours, markers and share a story of what we like best about where we live.
Lots of energy and imagination was shared by all.
Before lunch, they could get by if they answered this question. What is the one thing as a kid or as a family you would like to try…not only here but anywhere in the world. Some of the answers blew me away. We have from extreme challenging dreams to very simple ones. Playing with an elephant, eat food, quite a few young ones want to do the high ropes, climb a tree, play baseball, go hiking, own a nature store, river and whitewater rafting, scuba diving, go to “Playland”, Amusement Park in Vancouver, A&W, bungee jumping, parachute jumping, space jumping, hand gliding, travel to Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Hawaii, Spain, Egypt, Disneyworld, drive across Canada, surfing, climb Mt. Robson, learn to fly a plane, play a musical instrument, tandem skydiving, learn another language (Spanish, Italian), orbit the earth, ride a helicopter, sail around the world, rock climbing, ride a bull, water colour, go with the kids hiking in the mountains in Fort Nelson, be in a play, walk the Great Wall, carry Olympic Torch in Russia, take resource management to respect old growth, act and sign, own a record, movie made with Sarah Ryan and act in it, horse jumping, dune surfing, play drums for a huge crowd, be a blond person, and play in the mud. It left me thinking how can we empower young people of all abilities?
As 20 of us gathered in a circle, to carry on our Café discussions, the rest of the kids, youths and families were experiencing the thrills of wall climbing, high ropes, canoeing all carefully guided by our staff members. So good conversations were had regarding questions that Educo’s leaders had come up with during a facilitation day. (this was one person’s answers that I gathered)
1. How can we recognize mistakes made in the past while at the same time appreciating the importance of where we are today? -Make time for contemplation, sharing communications -Provide opportunities for active listening (have one person speak to one or more others who have to learn and report information back to group) -Discuss importance of open-mindedness, humility, forgiveness (it's not just the mandate of churches), letting go of the past so you can experience the lightness of the moment and move forward with assurance, joy and anticipation. (Discussing various scenarios where each of these qualities would be useful) -Practice taking stock of blessings in life. -Discuss integrity and examples of it in the world, in our friends, in ourselves -Discuss the importance of being able to delay gratification (apparently this is a sign of maturity children develop this as they get older, hopefully. -Examples of "what you put out comes back to you" (but not always right away or in the form you would expect) -Examples of relationship between choices and consequences. -What has happened to you in your life is what has made you what you are. -Good News, Bad News, who knows? (If you don't know this little story, worth looking it up) Note: I don't believe in telling young people that if you make goals and then go about trying to make them happen then your life will turn out the way you want it to. Life often has other ideas, sometimes we need to listen to the messages we get in life when things don't turn out the way we wanted them to. We have to be willing to change direction sometimes. 2. How do we ensure that every youth in the world has a positive, effective and accessible support system? -Start with your own family. -Get all your relatives on board, if possible. -Bring back the supportive extended family (mend family quarrels) -Then move out to your neighbours and friends include them in your vision of supporting youth, develop car pools to take children to school bus, etc.
or pick them up along the road (teach children about "safe" and "unsafe" people) -Develop "safe houses" in the community where children can go if they need to. -More government funding to prevention programs, day care, education, families -Make it easier to adopt (in our own country and overseas) -Get to know your local First Nations community -Take part in "adopting" a child or community overseas 3. How can we teach youth to treat strangers as friends? -Assign a "friend" to new students in schools -Travel with your children -Programs like Educo, Katimavik, Amnesty International clubs in schools -Discuss plight of people in other parts of the world and what we can do to help (children can take part in relief programs - Aid to Haiti, etc.) -Peer teaching in schools, clubs, sports, etc. -Pen pals -Adopt a class, school or town programs -Invite people from other cultures, religions, sexual preferences into your home for your children to get to know.
And you were also invited to do more on the “Giraffiti Wall”. At the end of the day, most of the people had left and some did not want to leave!
We were very lucky to have Fiona, one of Educo’s leaders capture some of the conversations by graphic facilitation.
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At the end of the day, it was precious to see the boys play Ninjas.
What are the learning outcomes? • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Never stop playing. Live in harmony. Appreciate the past and tie it into the present. Celebrate every day. Include kids…you ought to be amazed. “Work” and “Play” go together. Youth & adults will engage if you make it fun & interesting. Everyone is so powerful. They will be helpful if you give them responsibility and they feel needed. Challenge yourself by choice mentally and physically. Gain new insights about yourself and people you are with. Find ways to increase your self-esteem and confidence. EDUCO’s dynamic leadership programs and life-changing activities inspire youths and adults to know themselves more deeply, to value others, fearlessly pursue their dreams and compassionately change the world.
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