Learnings from the Manchester Junior Youth Project

Today we have to rush out a DVD of a video we made couple of months back. It was a video Rosh and I made for the Manchester Junior Youth Project – which was a two weeks training and outreach program held in the Manchester where youth all over England came together to be trained to become junior youth animators (also better known as Ruhi Book 5) in the morning sessions while in the afternoon they were split into 3 groups for 3 different localities for outreach. Junior youth of the local communities came together as well during the outreach and many of them are first time door-knockers. Taster sessions, which are basically snippets of what a junior youth classes are like, were held at community centres and Baha’i centre every day for these two weeks and at the end of the campaign, 2000 doors were knocked and we successfully kick-started 3 junior youth groups.

Below are some of the shots from the 20 minutes video which hopefully one day you will get to see.

Shamta, a junior youth who was also my ‘partner-in-crime’ for one day, is a courageous, fearless lion, whose eloquence and transformation were such an inspiration to me personally, and I wouldn’t have highlighted that has it not been my experience with him – especially when we had to approach three grown-up men chatting outside their porch and seemingly intimidating. He went right in front of me and handed them the flyers. At that instance, I felt secured and protected by this little man whose heart was pure and all he wanted to do was to tell them about the junior youth group.

Some quotable quotes from our interviewees:

"We're gonna just try... and say that this is all about the junior youth, and come to the taster lessons. You might enjoy it. If you enjoy it, come again' and if you don't enjoy it... come again." - Shamta

"The whole community is transformed really, not at all justify the reputation that it has. It just helps you understand that the media plays a huge role in condemning a lot of these young people to being classified as hoodlums, when actually, really, they are lovely young people who just want to build a better future for themselves and their communities." - Dicky

"I don't know where people get their energy from... It must be a miracle. The prayers, the unity in the group, and the energy they get from each other, it's just really catching! You have the energy somehow!" - Homa

There’s so many more that I could say about this project. But nothing like being there and experiencing it myself. Unfortunately being on the video team means we weren’t able to participate fully in the project, nevertheless it was a blessing that we were able to absorb that spirit and energy generated.

The true success, I personally believe, lies in the transformation of these individuals, either previously a shy youth or an uncertain participant, now a confident and motivated speaker; and that with consistency and effort, not forgetting unity of action and thoughts of the group, will lead to the next stage which is the sustaining of these jy groups.