Back into the swing of things.

I returned to work on Thursday, January 3^rd, to an office not quite full or hopping (just me and two other colleagues in our office), yet the fun and energy of the work was not lacking.  It was great to be greeted by my co-workers…talk about what we did on vacation…and talk about all the events and projects coming up in the next few weeks.  Jaime and I (with the help of one of the interns in our office, Emmanuel) decided that our entrance needed a make-over.  It began with just taking down the letters of the old welcome message that hung around our welcome white board so that we could put up a new one…to touching up the white paint on the wall to clean it up…to encountering some beautiful bright blue paint in one of our rooms…and…well...  Now we have a wonderful splash of color that welcomes you into our office! :)  The white board is cleaned and back up with freshly printed and laminated names (we indicate where we are each day..”in the office”, “study club”, “personal day”, etc.) and on Tuesday I finished putting up all the letters that we cut out for the message.  That little (actually, not so little) project has done in between all the other things that have been starting up with this New Year.

On the 6^th, was the school supply day at Common Hope where all the families in the Antigua area come to the foundation to get their school supply packets for the year.  We wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to reach out to every affiliated family, therefore I put together a brochure with all the information about the programs that our youth office provides.  My leadership group and I were there on the school supply day to hand out these brochures and talk about our programs.  It was quite exciting and actually has produced some results as we have had many young people stopping by our office in the following weeks to ask about programs and sign-up for those that have sign-ups.  Very exciting!! :)  An exciting moment for me this day was at the beginning of the early morning (we were all there by 6:30am) when I was talking with the youth of my leadership group.  I was telling them that they were here to do more than just hand out brochures, but they really needed to talk to the families about our programs and why they should participate.  When it was time to get started they all wanted to sit at the table instead of going out to the different lines that were going to form with families waiting because they thought that staying at the table would mean less talking.  Well, everyone sitting at the table was not going to work…so I stopped them all from talking (as they were trying to negotiate who was going to get to stay at the table) and said “Okay, okay – Leaders, hands in!”  We all put our hands into the middle of the circle like sports teams do before the start of a game, and I gave my pep talk.  “We have some important work to do here for our office Apoyo a Jóvenes.  This is your opportunity to help us out.  Remember, I chose each and every one of you for this group because I knew that you could do something like this – I know you can talk to these families.  You are all leaders.  So, let’s get to it! On the count of 3 we are all going to say ‘Leaders!’ 1…2…3…LEADERS!”  And guess what happened?  They all grabbed up handfuls of brochures and rushed off so fast I didn’t even have a moment to blink…and guess who was left at the table?  Me. Just me. :)

I have had one more meeting with these leaders this past Saturday.  It is really fun working with them.  This month we are going to be learning about “What is leadership?” and exploring the different perspectives on it and what they themselves think about leadership.  I try to mix up our time together with games and activities along with short discussions and reflections.  We are also doing some of the preliminary aspects of starting a group such as working out expectations for the group, making personal goals, making our group contract with each other, etc.  It’s amazing how many experiences from my past I am able to pull ideas from…classes I’ve taken, professors or mentors I’ve worked with, groups I’ve been a part of, research I’ve read, etc.  It’s really cool to see it all coming together in a project I am working on.  I like it.

My girls leadership group is not going to start until February because I need more time to recruit.  Exciting news is after the school supplies day and getting the word out to many families that way, I have handed out 17 applications for the group.  Now the waiting…I really hope most of those applications come back filled out.  Right now I sit with 4 completed applications.

Beyond my leadership responsibilities I am keeping busy with other tasks as well, whether it’s planning the schedule and activities for 6 volunteers that are going to be with our office for a week; translating visits as new Vision Teams are starting to come down; or helping the youth that come into the Study Club.  School started up again this week, and we are very happy to already see youth coming in to work on their homework.  As the message outside our office now says, “Tu Meta Escolar 2103 Inicia HOY!” (Your 2013 School Goal Starts TODAY) it is important for the students to begin working hard right from the beginning so that they are learning and doing well the whole year instead of trying to catch up at the end.

I think I may be loving my job even more in this New Year.  I have such a greater confidence in myself and my abilities in my position; I KNOW what’s going on (most of the time :) ); I am forming and making my own activities and implementing my own ideas with programs of our office; and I have even stronger relationships with the youth and my colleagues.  It is good.  Life is good.