The Relevance of It All

If you’ve spent any time working in a youth program that is part of a larger organization, it is an easy, quick realization that you are considered irrelevant, unnecessary, and certainly unproductive in contributing to the bottom line. It’s rarely the design of a youth program to generate revenue and there’s always the constant battle to prove youth as resources worthy of support and recognition in the eyes of cynical donors with deep pockets.

The students in the attached video attended our Youth Engaged in Service training on homelessness. A combined training on leadership and youth homelessness in Pierce County, this service learning opportunity allowed students from various schools to develop skills, make connections, and gain confidence necessary to lead in their communities, as well as confronting them with very startling, but very real facts about homeless youth in their neighborhoods, in their schools, potentially in their own group of friends.

In 15 minutes, these students, strangers before that day, created their own advocacy presentation to encourage potentially apathetic peers to initiate change in their own communities.

It is unlikely that this video will ever raise money or dissuade the cynics, but until I see something like this come out of a board meeting, I’m not too worried if it doesn’t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1dDA124d3Q (tried to embed video, resorted to link)