CommuNIqué - Newsletter of the Bahá'í Community in Northern Ireland
Issue 144 - 8 Rahmat 166 BE - 1 July 2009 CE

 

THE JUNIOR YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMME IN NORTHERN IRELAND

 

The junior youth empowerment programme is designed to empower youth aged 11-14 to transform their communities while helping them with their own spiritual progress.  Junior youth groups do this by assisting these young people, who are at a critical stage in their lives, to identify their talents and potentials and then to develop them in a manner that enables them to fulfil their own potential and to improve the community in which they live.

There have been junior youth groups in Northern Ireland since 2005, and we are creating bank of knowledge and experience in starting and sustaining junior youth groups.  Currently in Northern Ireland, there are groups in Antrim, Ballymena, Banbridge, Bangor, and Belfast, with the possibility of another few groups starting over the next few months.  Since summer 2008, we have had junior youth groups start in Belfast, Antrim, Ballymena, and Bangor.  Each group is different because of the youth and animators involved, but what they all hold in common is that they all work towards building a new type of community life that is based on discovering the needs of a community and working to meet these needs.  The importance of spiritual and material progress taking place simultaneously is central to this aim of transforming communities.  Below are some accounts from animators and junior youth who have experienced what the junior youth empowerment programme is first hand.

’Well I really enjoyed the junior youth group! It is great. I enjoy the company of the group, we enjoy lots of fun activities but at the same time we learn about many important things, The books are very enlightening, they teach good lessons about virtues and qualities. We have some amazing animators. I thought that the service project that our junior youth group did was very good as it thought us about team work and that if everybody in our group did not work together then the project would not have gone as well as it did. I could go on for a long time but in a nut-shell the classes are amazing!!’

Our greatest obstacle with developing the junior youth empowerment programme in  Northern Ireland is that we don't have enough human resources to meet the needs of the community.  If you would like to train to become an animator of junior youth groups, please contact the NI Junior Youth Coordinator Darragh Graham.

 

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