Brigada Verde Meeting Take 1...

As I mentioned before, I am passing on projects  to my youth group as a way to make the work I have done with the kids sustainable. One of the projects I am working on is forming an EcoClub of interested teenagers. What my hope is that those who have an interest in learning about the environment can learn all there is to know and then pass it on to the younger kids of the Aldea. When those younger kids get older they will also have a base of knowledge and they will be the new participants in the EcoClub and they will teach the younger kids and so on and so forth the cycle of education continues.

I have 5 months to execute and hope that the idea catches on. We had our first meeting and it didn’t go as well as I had hoped.

First of all, since I want this group to be youth run, I had two of the jovenes practice speaking at the first meeting. While we had fun practicing, would you know the day of those girls completely left me high and dry. They were waaaaaaaay to scared and when I let them off the hook (as if I had a choice they were NOT going to talk….) they started being bad and running around and not realizing they were supposed to be in the leadership position.

Then came the general population. A few things. First of all this meeting was to see who out of the kids 12 and older are genuinely interested in participating in what we are calling “Brigada Verde” or Green Brigade. The kids thinking its obligatory to participate, all answer “si!” when I ask is this something they would be interested in. Now I know, talking about recycling, not littering and making art of out trash is NOT something that interests the majority of the teens I work with, however they all wanted to stay (so they said), but when it came time to get down to business it was evident who was cared and who didn’t.

a punch getting landed...smh

We had fun, and got some things done. A few kids helped set up which I didn’t expect at all. We had each youth bring a piece of fruit and for a ice breaker we made a fruit salad which was fun. After that, people came in late and I feel that’s when our dynamic got out of wack. For that reason some people will NOT be invited back due to behavior and I see some strict rules are going to be set in place. We have 11 interested people so far. So we will just have to see. My main qualms are talking at once, hitting (my co facilitator tells me it’s a “cultural” thing but I don’t think it should be permitted), and weeding out those who are only there to play.

 

I will continue to work with the two teens I dubbed the leaders of the group (one being the youth that I took to the Brigada Verde seminar in Quito) and hope for the best for future meetings.

I know this is a natural cycle for new groups being formed and it will be so worth it when the kids have enough confidence to take over the group and run it themselves. The beginning stages are all ways the most challenging so with that in mind we will keep on keeping on.