Reason for Relationship - Agent of Change

Reason for Relationship

Building a strong relationship with youth is great but if we don’t impact the youth, then what are we really building the relationship for? Ultimately, we want to make a difference in the lives of youth.

People not Programs

It’s not about what programs you run, its about the people you want to impact. Having a whole slew of programs is great, fun, and exciting but is it life-changing? We are in the business of making a difference and changing lives. That means redefining attitudes and mindsets. That means challenging youth to get out of their comfort zone and push themselves to rise up to the next level. Note: we said “push themselves”, not you push them. The motivation to make changes in their lives should be intrinsic, that is, naturally and self-motivated. How’s that going to happen? Through your relationship with them and through your life example. We’ve already said, more is caught than taught. Youth are saying, “Your actions speak so loud, I can’t hear what you say.” We’re sure you’re feeling like, “Wow, that’s such a high standard. I’m not sure I’m up for that.” Don’t panic! Your life is a journey and a process just like your youth’s. With regards to your relationship, one of my favorite books says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Both you and your youth will feel challenged to do better; to grow beyond what you’re comfortable with.

Change Isn't Easy

It’s like a crab shedding it’s shell. As a crab matures, it breaks out of its hard crusty shell and begins the process of forming a new one. Its life is marked by a passage through successive shells until a shell is built so durable that it cannot be broken. This shell stops growth and then becomes the crab’s coffin. Sometimes, all it takes for change to happen is the loving tap of a friend on our shells to realize that we have become confined and need to break out of a shell of comfort, a bad habit, or other qualities in our life that have confined us before the shell gets too hard and becomes a coffin. Change isn’t easy. It is natural for us to resist change, to step up into unexplored territory. Many times, we’ll elect to do it the way it’s always been done in order to avoid the agony of change. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. Other times, we choose not to say something or hesitate to act for fear we’ll say or do something wrong. Yes, you will make mistakes and you will fail but the only real failure is the failure to learn anything from your mistakes. Don’t beat yourself up that things didn’t happen according to plan and your youth aren’t responding at all to all your effort or if your youth program isn’t growing and you’re feeling the pressure for results from the top. Most supervisors will focus on results and numbers. It’s their responsibility to challenge you to do produce results to justify time and spending; your responsibility is to build people, not programs.

To Boldly Go

This whole relationship building thing might be that unexplored territory that you’ve never stepped into before. Maybe you’ve always just run a program that is mainly centered on organizing activities for youth. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past; what matters is what you’re going to do from today onwards. Whatever you decide to do and whatever changes you’re even deciding to make right now in your lifestyle or the way you do youth work, always remember that the one underlying factor in everything we do should be love. We need to genuinely love our youth. Love that’s not motivated by selfish reasons or personal fulfillment; unconditional love. All the programs that we run, the activities we plan, the time we spend with our youth means nothing if we don’t genuinely, unconditionally love youth. But if you do love them, then that’s all the foundation you really need. We can teach you everything you need to know about youth work but if you never build that on the foundation of love, your whole program is going to collapse on you one day. That’s the one essential, over arching principle. Love your youth.

Key Leaning Points:

· The only failure in life is the failure to learn from your mistakes.

· Build people, not programs.

· Love your youth.

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

Joshua has more than 10 years of experience working with youths and currently works for PromiseWorks as their Head of Mentorship and co-created an online resource site, www.YouthDevelopmentResources.com. He has a unique perspective from that of a young person who is both a protégé in a mentoring relationship and also responsible for promoting mentoring for PromiseWorks. His primary passion in life is to create awareness about mentoring within Singapore, develop mentorship programs including content development, working with mentors as volunteers, and ensuring that PromiseWorks’s mentoring program remains relevant to youth in Singapore. Realizing he was spending more time searching for or developing effective youth resources than he was spending time with the youth, he and his mentor Ken Sapp co-created Youth Development Resources, www.YouthDevelopmentResources.com to cater to this need.

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