Truth: My closest friends
in Uganda have an average age of 13.4 years.
Truth: The second youngest
country in the world is Uganda, with a median age of 15.5 years.
Truth: There are not a lot of available and
supportive organizations for this demographic to go to in order to gain
substantial support for their future.
Truth: In Movement is one
of the few places that offer such services although with funding issues, those
programs has since ceased.
Truth: Not for long!
A couple of months ago I
was able to apply for a small youth grant to organize a 5-week Youth Leadership
Summit with some of our In Movement alumni and youth from our partner schools
and Breakdance Project Uganda. The idea
is to work with 20 young people on various leadership topics, such as public
speaking, creative thinking, teamwork, communication, decision-making, and
facilitation using the arts; such as music, dance, drama, and creative writing.
Yesterday was day one.
We decorated notebooks,
did name games, went over our goals and community agreements, and ended with a
song and snacks.
Throughout the coming
weeks we will build on the existing skills that these youth have to the point
that they can be the facilitators. The
organizational development of In Movement has the potential to change, transitioning
to a volunteer run program. Due to this,
we need our youth to climb their way to the top of the summit, take the lead,
and be the future of both In Movement and of Uganda. We are going to break down what they know by
having them teach one another and share their experiences.
As quoted by Rene Daumal, "You cannot stay on the summit forever; you
have to come down again. So why bother
in the first place? Just this: What is
above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has
seen. There is an art of conducting
oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least
still know."
No comments:
Post a Comment