By Caroline Millman | Chairman, PeaceJam UK
With the help of GlobalGiving, we have been able to develop PeaceJam UK’s “Generation Change” project. This is part of the Covid-19 relief efforts and is being developed to help teenagers and young people feel more positive about their futures.
The current narrative about young people, suggesting that they have fallen behind and will never catch up, is demoralising. It completely misses the resilience and flexibility that young people have shown over the last year and ignores their real potential. We have consulted groups of teenagers to find out how they have coped with ‘lockdown’, how this experience has affected their lives, and what they would like to see happen now.
This feedback is helping us put together workshops that will enable young people to think more positively about their futures; appreciate that they have abilities and have not ‘failed’; consider different paths to their goals and enable them to feel a sense of achievement. These workshops are being delivered by a team of mentors comprising university students and young professionals who are helping to construct the workshops and train others to join the team. We have also consulted our Schools/Teachers Advisory Group.
We know from the success that our mentors have when working with young people at our Conferences, that this ‘near-peer’ connection is very powerful and whilst the current delivery is happening ‘online’ it is hoped that we shall be able to go into schools from January next year.
Our aim is to train 60 mentors and reach 3,000 young people over the next year. This project has only been possible due to the generous donations we have received through GlobalGiving. Thank you so much for helping us to help young people to start coming out of this pandemic with more hope for their futures and more potential to make a positive contribution to the world around them. Your support is greatly appreciated, and we look forward to sharing more updates about this project during the year.
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