On Monday I was up in Kamloops taking part in an annual gathering called the “Stop Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth” Conference. That’s a mouthful but it’s a truly wonderful annual gathering hosted by The Justice Institute of British Columbia (itself a great thing we have here in BC).
I was asked to come and deliever a workshop on dialogue and deliberation methods with youth, and so I showed up to do that. In my design I though it would be cool to see if I could give people a tast of what it feels like to be engaged so deeply that we experience emergence. I wanted people to experience what it feels like to work from their strengths and have something appear about youth engagement that no one person brought into the room with them. And I had 2.5 hours.
I began where I always begin, telling the story of the quadrants, and mapping the four open space practices in some detail (link opens a .pdf). Instead of filling in my own practices, I asked people what their practices were and we filled in the map together. This is important, because people truly do know how to do opening, inviting, holding and grounding. It’s just a matter of turning their attention to how they do it.
After that, we moved into an opening practice, with a bit of an Appreciative Inquiry experience. I invited people to pair up and interview one another on the question of “Tell me a story or two of a time when you felt deeply engaged by others. What might we learn from that about engagement in general?” People spent a very short time interviewing – 10 minutes each – and then they returned to the circle.
Next I gave them a taste of The World Cafe and we moved into fours to process some of this learning. The question for the first 20 minute round was “What can we learn from these reflections about deeply engaging youth.” After the first round was over, the groups mixed up and continued exploring the question. At the end of the second 20 minutes, I asked them to remain in their spots and turn their collective minds to discerning “What ideas want to hatch now?” The third round was quieter and more deliberate.
Finally we reconvened in a circle and I invited reflections about where we were at after spending this time thinking through this work. We got a number of ideas, including thoughts about deep listening, about approaching youth where they are, both physically and emotionally and about showing up completely authentically in engagement and with curiosity about where the process might lead. There were also a number of “aha’s” about detaching from outcomes.
In just over an hour and a half, using nothing but the resources and stories of the people in the room we did experience a little bit of emergence and a I think everyone got some good ideas out of the session. If we had had more time, I would have then worked with the most interesting ideas (as determined by the group) and perhaps split people up into little design teams to figure out how these principles might work in a grounded engagement process. Then we could have melded these conversations together into some tools and approaches that might be useful.
I think the biggest learning for people was just how fast learning can take place when you are engaged in deep conversation about stuff that matters. And how the most important person in that kind of process is not the facilitator or the teacher, but the experts you are surrounded by, and the stories and experiences of your own life, seen in a new light.
My buddy Jon Husband today blogged a fascinating piece by danah boyd on why and how youth are using MySpace. Her conclusion…
Youth are not creating digital publics to scare parents – they are doing so because they need youth space, a place to gather and see and be seen by peers. Publics are critical to the coming-of-age narrative because they provide the framework for building cultural knowledge. Restricting youth to controlled spaces typically results in rebellion and the destruction of trust. Of course, for a parent, letting go and allowing youth to navigate risks is terrifying. Unfortunately, it’s necessary for youth to mature.
Youth are in constant need of spaces, both physical and virtual, and it is the practice of western societies to generally deny them those spaces for reasons of trust and control. I’m interested in how youth are creating space despite the efforts of adults to prevent them for having it.
I’ve written before about the Aboriginal youth I know who are a part of Building Our Legacy Together, a network dedicated to staying connected, supporting each other’s work for bringing a new community-based youth leadership voice to Aboriginal communities in BC. These guys are meeting online all the time, mostly using MSN and other forums and through various websites and message boards.
Any one working with youth networks needs to know how these modes work and needs to find ways of supporting and participating with them.
Here’s a report on an OST meeting that I did on the weekend for a really interesting project which got youth to monitor violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the city of Vancouver.
The project was the brainchild of a number of organizations in the Vancouver, who came together to ask about how the UN convention could be used to draw attention to some of the pressing issues faced by children and youth in Vancouver. These issues included experiences in the child welfare system, poverty, lack of equitably funded education opportunities in poor neighbourhoods, safety and treatment by police, transit security and others in power.
The project lasted over two months during which youth facilitators working with a team at the City of Vancouver set out to hold focus groups to educate youth about the Convention, and to gather information from youth themselves on rights violations. More than that though, the youth were also invited to create visions for the future and for the society that they wanted to see, and these visions were harvested through words and pictures.
All of this work through local neighbourhood organizations culminated this past Friday and Saturday. Thirty-five youth gathered on Friday, to meet one another, build community and most importantly, reflect on their experience in the process and create a performance piece that would express a summary of what the project had learned. The performance itself involved the construction of a mural, some spoken word and rap, music and playback theatre. Parts of the performance were in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew and Russian.
Saturday morning, leaders from various levels of government and organizations were invited to join the youth in Open Space to figure out where to go forward. The project was officially over on the Saturday, and so we wanted to create a space in which the messages would get sent and an invitation made from the youth to the adults to work together to keep alive the spirit of what was happening. Fifty-five people gathered Saturday morning, and the youth did their performance which kicked off a short and intense Open Space. There was some significant power in the room, including two Members of the Provincial Legislative Assembly one of whom is the the provincial child welfare critic. Topics raised included what to do to help youth live independently and in safe conditions, stopping police harassment of Aboriginal and Latino youth by working with the police, and educating youth and adults on rights. All of the groups were composed of both youth and adults and the feeling in the room was one of possibility and optimism, despite the huge nature of some of the changes that were being discussed. To have provincial politicians sitting in the room with street youth, working together to move forward the learnings from the project was a powerful experience.
Increasingly I am seeing the possibility involved in bringing creative expression into play with youth working in Open Space. I know there have been many conversations about playback theatre in the Open Space community over the years, but, being a little slow on the uptake sometimes, I’m just now beginning to see how it integrates with OST work. The creative pieces, and the process of creating something together, is another practice ground for passion bounded by responsibility, and youth find their voices in many different ways when they are invited to work together to create art which is used as an invitation for action. There are a number of places in which I think this can be a significant combination and I’ll be looking for opportunities like this over the next little while. In the meantime, if you have had experience combining youth, creativity and Open Space together, let me know so I can continue to expand my horizons on this a little bit.
The group of Aboriginal youth I have been working with, Building Our Legacy Together, have had a busy winter, and their activities were recently summarized in this report from coordinator Crystal Sutherland:
“Youth � Building Our Legacy TogetherPawatskwachilth Haiyupis, Crystal Sutherland (Ahousaht) and the 15 member provincial BOLT Executive have successfully hosted the first forum in Fort Rupert Big House located on the Kwakiutl reserve just outside Port Hardy. The purpose of the forum was for Aboriginal youth to identify issues and have the opportunity to make recommendations to federal departments as well as introduce and engage Aboriginal youth with Aboriginal Leadership and elders. Over 120 youth, elders and leaders participated in the event.
Invited guests were: Shawn Atleo – BC AFN, Patrick Kelly – INAC Deb Foxcroft – Vancouver Island Aboriginal Transitional Team, Harley Wylie – BC Aboriginal Network on Disability Society, Lorraine Calderwood-Parsons – Office for the Child and Youth, Peter Knox – Hereditary Chief, Basil Ambers – Fort Rupert Elder, Stanley Sam – Ahousaht Elder, Archie Thompson – Toquaht Elder.
One of the immediate outcomes from the Fort Rupert BOLT forum was the engagement and participation of a group of teens from the Fort Rupert reserve in a band council meeting the week following the BOLT forum.
The next steps are:
- To secure funding for the ongoing activities for 5 more forums across BC in Kamloops, Prince George, Skidegate, Chehalis and one provincial forum to follow-up.
- The BOLT Youth Executive will have a strategic planning session to determine our next steps.
- Create the BOLT for Youth Foundation to grant funds to youth designed projects in BC First Nations communities.
Many committed people worked hard to make this event a success. We would like to take this time to thank and acknowledge the supporters of the BOLT initiative:
Kleco (thank you) to the Fort Rupert Hereditary Chiefs for allowing us to meet in their Big House, Kleco to Chief and Council for donating their facilities, Kleco to the Fort Rupert Elders and singers for sharing their prayer, song and dance with the BOLT participants, to the volunteers and to the Fort Rupert community for their generous hospitality and for looking after their territory. Kleco to the Vancouver Island Youth Task Group for volunteering countless hours to design and deliver the forum, to the youth keynote speakers whose stories inspired the youth participants, to Chris Corrigan for facilitating, to leadership who listened with understanding, to Patrick Kelly for taking photographs that tell our story, to all our sponsors who made this event possible – BCAFN, INAC, VIATT, Inter-tribal health authority, sacred wolf friendship centre, Ha’sa Program, and RedWayBC. Kleco to the caterers for keeping us nourished to do this good work, to the chaperons for caring for the youth and keeping them safe and to Joan Calderhead for advising and mentoring us. Lastly, Kleco to all the young participants who took the time to share and voice the serious issues (suicide prevention, teen pregnancy, children in care, addictions, sexual abuse, decolonization etc…) that must be addressed in order to create healthier communities for future generations and the Elders who provided support, love and traditional knowledge to the youth in these heavy discussions.
On March 2nd at the Economic Opportunities Roundtable, the following supporters each donated $500.00 and put the challenge out to other Chiefs and Aboriginal Financial Institutions. The BOLT Youth Executive would like to acknowledge and thank the following contributors:
Chief Shane Gottfriedson – Kamloops Indian Band, Chief Gary Oker – Doig River First Nation, Chief Jerry Asp – Tahltan Band, Keith Matthews – Community Future�s Lawrence Lewis – Bute Inlet Development Corporation, Chief Barry Seymour – Lheidli Tenneh Band. A special acknowledgement and thanks to the BCTC for their $10,000 donation!
This whole project is youth led and youth organized. They are attracting the resources they need through invitations to work together like this one. If you would like more information about these guys, or see a way to contribute to their work, get in touch with me and I’ll hook you up.
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