What Can Adults Do Engage Young People in World Changing Initiatives?
Let me begin by pointing out that I’m not talking here about encouraging youngsters to make a monetary contribution to a favorite charity, or an occasional donation to a food bank. That’s admirable, but it isn’t likely to unleash that full energy, enthusiasm and creativity I mentioned above. So what can we do to release that youthful potential?
Help Them See the Face of Need
What my wife Brie and I discovered as we interviewed young people for our book Young Enough to Change the World: Stories of Kids and Teens Who Turned Their Dreams into Action, was that the single most important thing that spurred young people to action was a genuine awareness of a need, and the recognition that someone had to do something to address that need. Seeing something on TV, or hearing or reading about it, was seldom the trigger to action; a face to face glimpse of an individual’s or group’s need was a more effective call to action. In my last post, I mentioned three young people who, once they witnessed the face of need, decided to do something about it. Here’s one more example.
Michael and Mehrnaz Johnson thought their son Alec and his friend Luke needed a reality check after reading the boys’ Christmas wish lists. So they invited the boys to make burritos with them one Sunday morning, and then they all drove down to San Deigo and distributed the burritos to homeless people. Luke at first wouldn’t even get out of the car because he thought all homeless people were “smelly druggies and criminals.” That was over three years ago. Since then Alec and Luke have continued distributing burritos and a whole lot more to the homeless—and they have enlisted dozens of other volunteers to help them. Visit their website and see the remarkable things they are accomplishing. http://burritoboyz.org/
Show Them You Have Faith in Their Ability to Accomplish Their Goal
When a group of her middle school students approached Betsy Sawyer with their idea of getting into the Guinness Book of World Records by creating the biggest book in the world, she was of course a bit skeptical, but she didn’t discourage them. Instead, she suggested that if they were going to take on a big project like that why not make the subject of the book as big as its length and width (twelve feet high and ten feet wide). And so began the adventure of creating The Big Book: Pages for Peace. http://www.pagesforpeace.org/home.html
Be Prepared to Give Support, Advice and Assistance
Don’t lose sight of the fact that this is the young person’s project, not yours. Don’t take control of it. The father of a seven year old girl in our book helped her write the letter that began her food bank, but she wrote it; he didn’t. A determined young person will make mistakes, don’t we all, but they will learn from those mistakes, especially if we are willing to provide wise counsel. We can also assist by giving encouragement and by helping a young person locate the critical resources that s/he needs to make a project successful.
Model a Commitment to Others in Your Own Life
Every one of the remarkable youngsters in our book acknowledged people (parents, siblings, teachers and friends) whose actions inspired them to take action and to believe that, if they did, they could make a positive difference in the lives of others. So I’ll end with a link to a poem that will remind us of how we influence the lives of young people even when we may not be aware of it. http://www.mamarocks.com/when_you_thought_i_wasnt_looking.htm