The students’ final project, which consists of interventions into local health, educational, or environmental issues, is the culmination of the youth leadership program. Before they can carry out their community diagnostic or brainstorm solutions, however, the students first have to decide which local community to work with. This week, our main objective was to reach a consensus about where to conduct the final project. Along the way, students developed valuable skills facilitating, negotiating, and teamwork.
The students began with a list of 8 communities, each home to one or more of the students. Using a series of parameters, including the accessibility of the community, existing natural resources, strength of community organizations, public resources, and the availability of local collaborators, they ranked the various communities and selected the 3 most suited for the final project.
After narrowing the list, the students had to collectively decide which among the three would be the actual place of their community diagnostic and intervention. First, Michael and Jeny offered a lesson in group discussion and consensus-building. The students came up with a list of successful and democratic consensus building strategies, such as listening to everyone’s opinion, summarizing the main points, making all participants’ feel welcome to share ideas, and choosing who speaks next based on who raised their hand first.
Following the lesson, two student facilitators led the group discussion and worked to ensure that everybody’s voice was heard. Students offered impassioned pleas and reasoned arguments for why one community rather than another was the ideal site for the final project. Drawing on the consensus-building techniques and democratic ethos learned throughout the year, the students collectively decided that the local Chiac community would be the site of this year’s community diagnostic and intervention. Next week we’ll fill you in on the preliminary results of the group’s first visit to Chiac and the meeting with a local community leader!
