Youth Council

We have had the important opportunity to participate in starting a Youth Council for refugees. The point of the council is to gather together members of the refugee program and get their feedback on their position in the program, in their foster homes, and in school, as well as learning English.

This has been a fantastic opportunity to help students in our area, and make an impact in the world, especially at a local level. I am very glad we've had this opportunity to help those in our area, as we reach out in the world, and try to help the change the world. However important it is to be kind and reach out in simple ways, it is also important to reach out in large steps as well, and I feel like this is one large step that we can take. We are getting to serve and help those in our area, which is really important if we want to leave a positive global impact.

This was only our first meeting, and we are planning to attend two more, which will hopefully get the students started on their own council and can keep it going even when we've finished our semester. The purpose is to help the refugees in this program to have a place where they can share ideas, plan events, and give feedback to the leaders of the program, and our purpose is to begin their councils and show them how to perform a cohesive meeting, that they may continue these meetings without us.

With that in mind, in looking back at our first meeting we can come up with ways of improvement. There are four questions I will attempt to answer in reflection. How did the process go? What are some specific details noticed about the group process? What went well? and What should we focus on next time?

First, how the process went. I think we had some good ideas and we did get our refugee friends to talk (I was really worried that they wouldn't) and our group, although it was incredibly large, was all welcoming and kind and helpful. I give many thanks to our group, because they were so kind and so open! I think that was an important part in the process because if our group just went and sat down, quiet and reserved, the process would have gone much different. Being open and kind like that was a key factor in helping these refugees open up and have a productive meeting. But we had a good plan in place, and we adjusted that plan as necessary as the meeting called for those adjustments. There were some issues because only three refugees showed up, where a good-sized group was supposed to attend. We had a productive meeting with the three we met, and got to know them, but because there were so few, we didn't have a lot of thoughts to cover time for 2 hours. So we ended an hour early, which wasn't planned. Overall, the process went well, despite all the adjustments we had to make and cutting time short due to only three members.

I certainly noticed that the meeting didn't go exactly how we had planned, and I think that might be something we want to share with the refugees, because if our purpose being there is to teach the students how to run a successful meeting, we should help them plan the next meeting, and then also help them to understand that sometimes (actually most of the time) the actual execution of the meeting doesn't go according to that plan, and needs to be adjusted as you go. So the group process of planning went well, the group process of delegating responsibility went well. Those that were given tasks completed those tasks with efficiency, and those that weren't delegated a specific task, still performed their responsibility of being kind and being supportive and helping the leaders. Together, we had a cohesive environment. So I think the group process went well.