Fresh Volunteers

Our trainings for the "Be the Volunteer, Be the Change" campaign came to a turning point on Saturday. Officially, it was the projects closing date, though I won't say the work is done. We picked a hand-full from among the over two-hundred youth we first spoke to about volunteerism to attend the training, during the course of the training, not all the youth continued to show interest. I cannot consider this a tragedy, for I would rather spend my time with a dozen dedicated individuals than a hundred disengaged teenagers. Here we are posing in our new t-shirts at the end of the day. I wanted to do tie-dye, but it probably wouldn't have been "frumos" (pretty) enough.

To recap, this project took us out into seven villages where we spoke to youth about volunteerism and the concept of a local youth council (where I work!). We then selected youth from each village to come to our center and learn more. For four weeks, we taught courses on leadership, public speaking, garnering support from local partners, and how the youth groups cam officially register as a non-governmental organization with the district's department of youth and sports.

I am thrilled to report a glimpse at our results:

[+] Two groups of youth already visited their mayor and struck ground and agreements of partnership. One mayor even gave the youth a room inside city hall (primaria) to house their council.

[+] Each group of youth had homework throughout the training. One assignment was to conduct a volunteer activity in their community. This resulted in organized clean-up days in two of our villages. One group cleaned a stream area, another their sports stadium. I asked what the average passerby had to say to the latter group. A proud young lady responded, "Everyone came to thank us for taking the initiative to clean up a mess that affected the whole community."

[+] This week I am going out to facilitate a SWOT Analysis with one of the more developed groups of youth. This way, I hope we can identify what comes next for the group.

[+] My partner gets to finish her first go at the project planning process, as this week we are tasked with writing a report to the funders that helped us pull off the project.