At our regional reflection meeting (for South Luzon) two weekends ago, we decided to have a gathering this weekend of potential animators in South NCR, Manila...as an effort to achieve the vision of the current five year plan. *too much Bahá'i lingo here...in simpler words, the purpose of the activity is to help make the world a better place :)
It was the first time for some of the participants to meet each other...since we all come from different clusters within Metro Manila. Most of us have completed Ruhi Book 5, and some of us have had Junior Youth groups before...but none of us currently have a JY group...so the purpose of the gathering was to gather the potential animators, and study some material and make plans to start JY groups in our neighborhoods!
First on our agenda was to refresh our memories of Ruhi Book 5 (Releasing the powers of junior youths). First, we talked about who are Junior Youths. These are kids between the ages of 12 - 15...they're in between children and youths, so at this stage they're going through A LOT of changes (physically, mentally). They're very susceptible to peer pressure. They're also very curious and energetic...so we have the Junior Youth Empowerment Program to help them channel their energies and talents in a positive way. We read that animators are "mentors" of junior youths - so we should avoid being paternalistic, authoritative or self-righteous, and instead to form strong bonds of friendships with the junior youths and advise them in the most loving way possible. The Junior Youth program lasts 3 years - so an animator needs to be absolutely committed because she/he will grow with the JYs, so that at 15 year old the JYs themselves can become trained to become animators.
Josef gave a really nice example; he said "we plant the seed in the minds of the Junior Youths, but we leave it to the Junior Youths to nurture that plant so it grows well." Of course we can guide them, and remind them to trim the weeds...we equip them to be able to nurture the plant...but the act of doing it lies in them. So we "enhance their spiritual and intellectual capacities..." to prepare them to become active agents of change in their societies.
We read a few more paragraphs here and there, then at one point I asked the group "do you think being an animator is easy?" Josef said yes, and we burst laughing because little did he know what quotation I was about to read next. I read a quotation from the Guardian, Shoghi Effendi "It is on young and active Bahá'is, like you, that the Guardian centers all his hopes for the future progress and expansion of the Cause, and it is on their shoulders that he lays all the responsibility for the upkeep of the spirit of selfless service among their fellow-believers. Without that spirit no work can be successfully achieved..."
Then we all turned to Joseph and jokingly asked so.... is it still an easy task? :)
We then brainstormed on what the qualities of youths are...to understand why such responsibility is on us.
To further elaborate on how important the role of animators is, Yannick presented a chart called the "Human Spiritual Cycle" which the youths in the Solomon Islands made to help them start meaningful conversations with others.
The chart really captures all the four core activities, starting with Children's classes for Ages 3 -11 (a program which provides spiritual nourishment to children, through prayers, songs, storytelling and games!) then the JYEP for ages 12 - 15...a period where significant transformation happens...the bridge between childhood and early adolescence. After completing the books, then the JYs become youths who can undergo the Ruhi Institute process... there is a service component after each book for example after completing book 1, you can host a devotional meeting; after book 3 you can handle children's class; after book 5 you can animate a junior youth group...after some of the books you can tutor a group through the Ruhi sequence. No one gets left out; it involves everyone. The purpose of all these is to transform ourselves as individuals, who can then transform the society we live in, then the entire country and eventually the whole world!
Since the focus of this gathering was on animating junior youth groups, we decided to study the first JY book - Breezes of Confirmation. Most of the participants have read the book before and are familiar with the story. So we decided to take it a step forward, and discuss the complementary activities and service project aspect of the program. I shared with them a template Lesson Plan which I learnt during my year of service in Lucknow two years ago. Basically, animators are encouraged to plan their lessons before each class, and keep a reflection notebook to document learnings.Altogether we tried coming up with a lesson plan for the first chapter: we read the story, then we identified concepts we think we should dig into to help the JYs be able to relate the story to their own lives, to encourage everyone to share ideas...and in order to make them appreciate the concepts more, we needed to come up with complementary activities for each lesson. Lesson 1's plan basically looked like this
Concept
|
Questions
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Creative activity
|
Joy
(Musonda’s heart
is fully of joy)
|
What gives you
joy?
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Sing the song
from BCC “Joy gives us wings to fly”
|
Family (Musonda’s family)
|
How many siblings
do you have? What games do you like to play with them?
|
Draw your family
tree
|
Friendship (Musonda & Rose)
|
How do you spend
time with your friends? What kinds of thoughts do you share with your friends?
|
Make a
card/friendship band and give it to your friend
|
After getting a hang of how the lesson plan works, we divided ourselves into four pairs and took one lesson each. We had to come up with concepts/ a lesson plan, then as a pair go to the front and animate (pretending the rest of us are junior youths) and boy was it fun!
Two groups discussed the concept of ambition/goal...the question "what do you want to become when you grow up?" It was so interesting how both groups came up with two different kinds of creative activities. Josef and I asked our JYs to draw what they'd like to become, then write down the efforts they need to make to achieve their goals, the virtues they need to possess, etc. Some of our "pretend" Junior Youths had goals of becoming a beauty queen, Batman and a cleaner.
The other pair (Munirrih & Gen) asked each us to act out a profession through the game of charades, then have the other pairs guess the profession. We had so much fun practising, having conversations about important concepts - the other two groups brushed on the concept of confirmation. We enjoyed the complementary activities, so we understood how important it is for our JYs to have it too.
Apart from how joyous the activities were, we realized how much better it is to work with each other, to mutually support each other. We agreed that it's always best if two animators handle a junior youth group together - so they can plan together, brainstorm, assist each other (if one is absent, at least another person can take over without the JYs having to go through a week without class). We learn to think out of the box when we walk the path of service together. So more than anything, today's experience for me was really about building bonds of friendship amongst the potential animators. Though we'll be working in 4 - 5 different communities around Manila, we know we have the same goal to achieve...we know we're all about to embark on the same journey together.
The next thing we did later that day was the highlight of the gathering - we went to the Barangay captain of a Barangay just 2 - 3 blocks away to introduce the JY and children's class program! Munirrih had identified some JYs and children in the neighborhood to invite for activities on weekends...but one of the parents told her to inform the Barangay officials about our program. Our RBC secretary prepared a letter and attached information about the Bahá'i Faith and its core activities... so we all accompanied Munirrih to the Barangay Hall and gave a brief presentation.
 |
| rainy afternoon...walking to the other Barangay |
We talked to the Barangay Captain (lady in blue on the right) about the three programs and the content of the Children class and JY Group books. We also got to briefly talk about the Bahá'i Faith...
We mentioned to her that next weekend, we'd like to meet with the youths/junior youths in that neighborhood and present our programs, so we can identify who's interested to be trained/to be part of the program...then it will become a regular program to be held at their Barangay hall. She was absolutely supportive of it. We concluded that we received confirmation today :)
***
When we got back, we decided to sing songs while waiting for dinner. A few minute later, we decided to create a melody for one of the Bahá'i quotations. We chose "The betterment of the world can be accomplished through pure and goodly deeds, through commendable and seemly conduct" (Bahá'u'lláh)
Josef got the guitar, and we spent about ten minutes thinking of how we want the melody to be - hip hop? choir? You won't believe this, but in FIFTEEN MINUTES ONLY, after each of us threw ideas here and there, we came up with this tune! We did four practises before we recorded this video.
Enjoy :)
"When there is love, nothing is too much trouble,
and there is always time"
-Abdu'l-Bahá