Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Youth Using Skills To Benefit Others – Youth Group Activity

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Youth using skills to benefit others
What skills do your young people have?

If you’re a regular reader of the Youth Workin’ It blog, you’ll know by now that we’re big fans of youth empowerment and youth participation.

This week’s youth work session plan idea aims to build on that and help show youth how they can make a difference in the lives of others.

Session Purpose

This activity is based on a video that highlights how one young person from Sierra Leone is using his skills to benefit his community.

The purpose of this session idea is therefore to get your youth to consider what skills they have and how they can use them to benefit their own community.

Session Outline

Show the video below to your youth group. Once they’ve watched it, use the discussion questions below – or your own – to explore some of the areas covered in the video and to help inspire your young people to take action.

Video

First, watch this video with your young people:

Discussion Questions

  1. Kelvin loves inventing – what do you love doing?
  2. What job would you want to do in the future, even if it meant you hardly earned anything?
  3. Kelvin’s taught himself how take broken electronics and fix them. What things do you actively seek to learn outside of school / college?
  4. He made a generator and created his own radio station to give a voice to other youth. What could you do to give a voice to other young people? (If they struggle to come up with any ideas, consider suggesting areas they might be able to get involved in, like sticking up for other students who are bullied or for youth who are trafficked).
  5. David said about African countries: “Unless we have a host of young people who can think at any given point that here’s a challenge, here’s a problem, here’s an opportunity to solve it, there won’t be steep growth in national development”. How true do you think that is in your own country?
  6. Kelvin’s known as DJ Focus, as he believes that “if you focus, you can do an invention perfectly“. What are some things you focus on that you can do perfectly?
  7. Are these areas that benefit you or other people in some way?
  8. His Mom was excited as people said good comments about him. Is this something that happens to you?
  9. If not, what could you do to change that?
  10. Everything he learned at MIT, he wanted to share with his friends, colleagues and loved ones. What do you know that you could share with others to benefit them?
  11. David runs an innovation camp in Sierra Leone that seeks to have young people identify some of the problems in their community and challenges them to come up with solutions. What are some problems in your own community?
  12. Now that you’ve identified some of the problems, what can you do to solve them?

Question: What other discussion questions would you use with your young people based on this video? Please share your ideas in the comments below.

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3 Activities To Encourage Youth To Want Less Stuff

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3 activities to encourage youth to want less stuffLast year on Black Friday we encouraged you to help your youth consume less. Many young people want so much at Christmas time – new phones, new clothes, new shoes/boots, new tablets, new parents… OK that last one might be all year round and can’t really be helped, but you get the idea.

However, there are also a large number of young people around the world who won’t get anything for Christmas – it will be like any other day. Most youth want to matter and make a difference, so this time of year is a great opportunity to help bridge these two realities for youth.

This week’s session plan idea can work as one long session or as a few different sessions over the coming weeks leading up to Christmas. Here are 3 activities that will help encourage your young people to want less stuff, be grateful for what they have and to share with others.

Show Christmas Movies

There are a few great Christmas films out there beyond just ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. Don’t be afraid to tap into their inner-child – we showed A Charlie Brown Christmas to our youth one year and it was a big hit.

Here are a few movie ideas that work well with this theme:

A Charlie Brown ChristmasA Charlie Brown Christmas

 

 

 

 

How The Grinch Stole ChristmasHow The Grinch Stole Christmas

 

 

 

 

St Nicholas - A Story Of Joyful GivingSt Nicholas – A Story Of Joyful Giving

 

 

 

 

 

Commit To Less Stuff

Have the youth complete their Christmas wish lists based on this little rhyme:

One thing I want
One thing I need
One thing to wear
One thing to read

Make a Difference to Others

Participate in a great holiday project over the coming weeks that will help others and tap into your youth’s inner giver.

Question: What activities would you organize to encourage youth to want less stuff? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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Preparing For Christmas – Youth Work Session Idea

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Preparing for Christmas youth work session ideaIt’s less than 10 weeks until Christmas, something that seems to have come around way too quickly. It’s therefore worth making plans for any special programming or events you want to run during the holiday season, particularly if you haven’t started already.

Instead of being the sole person deciding on what activities you do at Christmas, why not involve your young people – this can help your young people in making informed decisions, encourages youth participation and helps them gain important life skills.

To help get you started, here are a few suggestions on how you can get your young people involved:

1. Fundraising

Christmas is a great time to organize a youth group fundraiser, so here a few ideas for how to do this:

Involve your young people in deciding what type of fundraiser to organize, how to plan it, when and where to do it, its promotion, etc.

2. Partying

Organize a Christmas party, but one that’s planned by the young people themselves. You could put them in charge of:

Make sure they’re also included in the less fun parts too, like the cleaning up after!

3. Volunteering

Christmas can be a miserable time for many people, whether that’s due to poverty, loneliness or some other factor. Encourage your young people to get involved in the local community and to make a positive change in the lives of others – they’ll find that they’re the ones who benefit the most.

4. Planning

Once Christmas is over, it’ll soon be the New Year. Depending on how far out you’ve already planned, the weeks leading up to Christmas could be a great opportunity to discuss with your young people what issues they’re currently facing.

The answers you receive can then help guide your programming for the forthcoming year, ensuring that the topics you cover will have a true resonance with your youth.

Question: How do you involve your youth when preparing for Christmas? Share your ideas in the comments below.

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Picking Up Litter – Youth Group Fundraiser

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Picking Up Litter Fundraiser
Litter photo courtesy of jillhudgins, Flickr

This week’s youth group fundraiser is one that benefits your whole community – picking up litter.

Now, this might sound like an unusual fundraiser – how can picking up litter fundraise for your youth group?

How it works

Your youth group will go out into the community with trash bags and pick up any litter they see lying around. In return for doing this, they seek sponsorship for each bag of trash they’re able to fill.

An alternative method is to seek sponsorship based on the weight of trash collected, rather than bags filled. There are a couple of issues with this though:

  • It’ll prove difficult to actually weigh the trash without some kind of industrial sized scales
  • People may be less willing to sponsor based on weight, as they won’t really be able to gauge how heavy a trash bag would be. They may also worry you’ll arrange to tow away a deserted vehicle or other heavy objects, greatly increasing the amount they’d be liable for as a sponsor!

Who to target for sponsorship

  • Parents
  • Neighbors
  • Local businesses (they might be especially keen to offer support if you’re picking up litter near their business)
  • Church congregations
  • Work colleagues of young people’s parents

Equipment needed

  • Heavy duty trash bags (or heavy duty bags for garden waste)
  • Gloves
  • Reacher-grabbers

Consider asking local businesses if they’d be willing to donate any of these items, either in addition to or in lieu of sponsorship.

Maximizing the fundraiser

Contact local newspapers and TV stations to see if they’d be willing to feature your youth group and the difference they’re trying to make to the community. This should result in additional people seeking out your youth group in order to sponsor them.

Try to identify areas in your community with a lot of litter. This will increase the amount you can pick up (and therefore receive more in sponsorship), while also preventing you from having to go to many different locations in order to find enough trash.

Some states and countries provide incentives for recycling cans, bottles, etc (e.g. the California Refund Value scheme). If you live in one of these areas, recycling the eligible trash can earn even more for your youth fundraiser.

Safety points

This youth fundraiser has the potential to have some risk attached to it, largely due to sharp objects. This could take the form of broken bottles, needles, chemicals, etc.

It’s therefore vitally important to discuss these dangers with your youth beforehand so that they know what to look for. If they see any questionable litter, advise them to call over an adult rather than picking it up themselves.

This is why the equipment listed above is so important. Heavy duty trash or garden bags will be less likely to tear than regular trash bags; thick gloves will help protect against sharp objects, hygiene issues, etc; reacher-grabbers can be used to pick up broken bottles, containers that may have chemicals in them, etc.

 

This youth fundraiser can also be a great opportunity to address the issue of over-consumption with your young people and encourage them to recycle. We also have many other ideas for youth group fundraisers that you might find useful.

Question: What tips do you have for organizing a picking up litter fundraiser? Please let us know in the comments below.

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr Day: A Youth Answering ‘Life’s Most Urgent Question’

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Image Courtesy of ThePoliticalCat www.kaliamo.blogspot.com

It’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the United States. This day remembers the life and sacrifice of Dr. King. His message of racial equality and non-violence changed the landscape of America.

While there is still a long way to go, there was progress made as a direct result of his actions. You can watch Dr. King’s iconic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech here.

Dr. King once said “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'” In honor of Dr. King’s life, today our Spotlight on Youth celebrates Olivia Stinson who started PEN (Peers Engaged & Networking) Pals Book Club.

After attending her church’s Christmas celebration for children and youth of incarcerated parents, she decided she wanted to do something more. PEN Pals Book Club provides peer mentoring and connections for youth with incarcerated parents and other teens. They also provide educational workshops and literature.

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