Junior youth are assisted to navigate through a crucial stage of their lives and to become empowered to direct their energies toward the advancement of civilization.
The program
The Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program gathers groups of junior youth, aged 11-15, at the neighbourhood level and enables them to develop their powers of expression – with a focus on critical reasoning, literacy, comprehension and eloquent speech – in order to participate more effectively in the planning, decision-making and development of their communities.
The program engages participants in a wide range of activities that include study, healthy recreation, arts, and service to the community. Group discussions are enhanced by a sequence of books designed to develop language skills and enhance their powers of expression.
Acts of service to the community play a special role in helping junior youth to apply what they learn into meaningful action that positively impacts the lives of others. Groups analyze what needs and opportunities exist in their communities, and together they design, carry out, and evaluate service projects that promote community wellbeing.
““We did a bunch of service projects as a junior youth group but I felt that the neighbourhood clean up and the community gathering were the most meaningful for our community. We all, as a community, came together to clean our neighbourhood and our neighbours were able to notice this difference in their environment. I thought the community gathering was very nice because so many people were able to come see about the junior youth program and learn about it and each of those people is able to help us contribute to a better community. I feel like the program helped me to grow spiritually. It helped me to think about how important it is to help others and to get to know them better.” ”
Materials
The Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program uses a number of educational materials developed by a global network of Bahá’í inspired organizations concerned with developing language skills and the power of expression. Some also address mathematical concepts and social issues, while others seek to prepare young people to approach the investigation of physical, social and spiritual reality in a scientific manner. The moral concepts in the materials are drawn from the Bahá’í teachings, and are designed in such a way as to touch on universal themes enriching to junior youth from all religious and cultural backgrounds.
““I’ve been in the program for two years, and I’ve been learning how forgiveness and being truthful can have such a big impact in my life. I’ve also learned to think more about the impact of the things I do on the people around me, and the whole world.”
”
our approach to study
A human being can live at different levels of consciousness. To recognize the forces that influence us and our communities, and to strive to dedicate our mental and spiritual powers to building a new world—these imply a higher state of consciousness than a life focused on material concerns. One of the main challenges of an animator of a junior youth group is to help its members reach higher and higher levels of consciousness.
During adolescence the powers inherent in the human soul increasingly manifest themselves. Among these, the powers of thought and expression are of particular importance, and nurturing them is equally vital to the expansion of consciousness. There is an intimate connection between language and thought. The power of thought is revealed through utterance, and the enhancement of the power of utterance is indispensable to the cultivation of understanding. Developing the powers of expression and deepening one’s understanding of reality go hand in hand. Understanding requires, after all, contemplation and reflection, activities inextricably bound up with language.
Each lesson studied by the junior youth is organized first with a reading and then with corresponding exercises that help the junior youth develop the languages skills mentioned above. Some lessons also have discussion questions that help the junior youth think about how they can apply the concepts they are studying to real life.
To learn more about the curriculum click here: http://www.devlp.org/
To see a list of topics covered click here:http://www.devlp.org/its-materials
To see the material in action and to see sample lessons click here: http://www.devlp.org/making-choices
Animators
Junior youth groups are accompanied by one or two older youth who serve as the group’s “animators.” Conscious that junior youth will be greatly affected by the example older youth set, animators are learning to create joyful environments that allow participants to build the capacities for a life of service to others, as well as to provide encouragement to scale greater and greater heights of excellence.
While global trends project an image of junior youth as problematic, lost in the throes of tumultuous physical and emotional change, unresponsive and self-consumed, the Bahá’í community—in the language it employs and the approaches it adopts—is moving decidedly in the opposite direction, seeing in junior youth instead altruism, an acute sense of justice, eagerness to learn about the universe and a desire to contribute to the construction of a better world.
It is with this in mind that volunteers are trained to see capacity, to overlook the faults of others and to work shoulder to shoulder in order to assist junior youth develop their character as well as their intellect.
Become a volunteer!