Student Interns Share Solutions to Community Problems
by James Brown
Leadership Development Director
For the last two summers, Urban Concern has hired Student Interns to work in our Summer Elementary Enrichment Program. One of our goals is to allow these older students to
experience working alongside the staff as community developers.
Monday through Thursday, the Interns work as classroom assistants and also do some tutoring. On Fridays we teach them Leadership Development and Problem Solving. Their assignment this summer was to interact with each other to come up with solutions to the problems affecting South Linden. This involved
critical thinking, vision-casting and strategic planning.
As a teacher, I like to use poetry and open-ended
questions to draw people out (see below). After this exercise, I started from
the point of hopelessness and we worked as a group towards resolution to address our feelings of community
despair. How can we put in place long-term solutions to change the "waste land?"
In Their Own Words
Here are
some of the conclusions these young people reached:
- We must get big brothers and sisters to be role models
for the younger kids; they need to have the right people to look up too.
- Get people in the community to plan and work together
to change their own community.
- Start a church and turn people away from drugs by getting
closer to the Lord.
- The community should take these problems to God, and know
that He's watching over this situation--and then do all we can do to make it
work.
Here is how the
Student Interns Defined Leadership:
- A leader is a person who knows how to set an example for
other people to follow and give people ideas of how to change.
-
A leader is a person who goes the extra mile to help
people and is available to help people when they need help.
-
A leader is someone who knows how to handle problems well
and can juggle more than one problem at a time...and is happy with helping
others.
-
A leader is a person who shows the right example
towards others and does the right thing.
- A leader is a person that can change people and let people
change others; they show love and are helpful to people.
It
was so encouraging & inspiring hearing the insights and ideas of these talented young leaders, that I just had to share this with you! Revolution
starts when every voice is heard.
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