Showing Up…

A reflection on ShareFest’s Youth Development Academy in 2010 by Anwar Shariff, Program Director

“If we don’t show up, no one will”. This is the mantra I used this past year when developing programming, and when dealing with the students in the ShareFest Youth Development Academy (YDA). This statement has never been more true than when working with young people. The whole idea behind the Youth Development Academy was to take our programming and resources to youth that really needed them. We figured that if we could be successful at a Continuation High School,  which signifies the end of the road for many students then we could be successful anywhere.

We showed up at Avalon full of hope and ambition in January with a tutoring and a leadership development course. The student that had the most immediate impact on me was Rolando. He was a senior who adamantly professed to hate math; that was until we started tutoring. During our sessions, it became evident that he knew a lot, but was just lacking on a few basic concepts. Once he got the individualized instruction that he needed, he not only excelled in math, he also admitted to liking it too.

After listening to Rolando’s and several other students’ stories in our leadership development course titled “Path for Teens”, my own paradigm took a shift when I realized “these kids aren’t bad!” My next thought was, “so why are they at a Continuation High School?” I found that it had been a variety of things that led these students to make the choices that would ultimately have a negative effect on their education. Some students were first generation and struggled with the language, some kids had parents that were addicted to drugs and were forced to care for their younger siblings at a very early age. Some suffered emotional set backs with the loss of a loved one or a close friend to violence. With some, they grew up without a father or a positive male role model in their lives and their mother’s deemed them independent as early as Jr. High and from that point on, they have been making their own choices about everything from going to school to earning an income (legally or illegally).

The choices they were forced to make at a young age, had a huge impact on their education. Our focus at ShareFest was to restore some of what was lost to them, namely the ability to enjoy education while learning in the process. During our Lifetime Fitness course, it was such a joy to watch these kids for the first time in a long time get to just be kids. It was titled “physical education”, but these kids saw playing tennis, badminton, and basketball was fun! Much different from a regular high school PE course, we focused all of our activities around teamwork and participation rather than daily grades and individualized testing. This led to an extremely high level of participation and amazing attendance rates.

During Art Education, a course that combined learning different mediums of art with cultural and social discussions, our goal was to again open that doorway that led back to the freedom and self exploration of their adolescent years. We invited them to tap into their restricted imaginations and unleash them on canvas, paper and sketch books. While the natural artistic ability and the overwhelmingly creative ideas of some of these students blew me away, the fact that a well-rounded education, (even at a continuation school) was their right, continued to ground me and remind me of my mantra.

Graduation this past June was bitter-sweet for me. The fact that these kids had reached such a lofty goal after having been exposed to much of the adult world at a young age was sweet indeed. But the bitter truth was that just because they were stepping off stage and into the “real world”, didn’t mean that they were ready for it.  Many were still grossly unequipped. I set a challenge myself to create programming that even more closely met the needs that students would have of obtaining employment, and gaining valuable skills for next year’s graduating class.

I used the emotional stories and educational set backs of the students I had learned from at Avalon Continuation High School as fuel for the programming for the Summer YDA for Middle School students. I challenged our counselors to pay extra special attention to their small groups of youth. I focused on summer programming that would be fun, innovative, challenging, creative and educationally stimulating. We partnered with the Summer Food Service program to ensure that every participant received a well-balanced breakfast and lunch every day of the academy and we served more kids than ever before! One participant that stands out to me was a little girl named Aji. She was in the sixth grade and it was her first year coming to our academy. Her parents immigrated from Nigeria and during our academy, she experienced a series of firsts. But none more impactful than her first time swimming. Her parents said she was overjoyed by the concept alone and couldn’t wait to get back in the water day after day. She even worked her way while in the beginner’s class, to going off of the low-diving board. She is the only kid that gave me a gift. As a matter of fact, she gave all the staff a gift of a homemade pen with a sunflower attached to it. Mine was accompanied by a hand-drawn card that read:

I had a wonderful time at camp. From the capoeira to the Laundry of Love project, to soccer. Everything we have done this summer was cool. I love the camp. I am planning to come next year.

I took this job because I wanted to advocate on behalf of these children. I wanted to be a resource for them to find the help that they needed. I wanted to inspire them to believe that they could be greater than their current circumstances. I wanted to provide them with the tools to live in a rapidly changing society. I wanted to convince them that college is for them and that education could be their ticket out of poverty, just as it had been mine. And over the past year, I have had opportunities to do that on a daily basis. I slip it in while tutoring, making comparisons to life’s problems through word problems. I paint mental images during art, of what their life could be if they dared to be creative enough and were honest in their self expression. I challenge them in conversations while riding on the Metro to our Lifetime Fitness class at Cal State Dominguez Hills. Our entire Summer YDA curriculum is predicated on inspiration, individualized attention and encouragement. And most of all, I question. I question all the time. I question their actions, the decisions that led to those actions. I question their faith in themselves. I question their knowledge about the world beyond Middle and High School and how they envision themselves in it.

Our programming works if for no other reason than our presence. We’re there for these kids and they know it. They feel our intentions and the love we have for what we do. And as they feel, they are inspired. When we show up, they show up. As a response to our commitment to believing in them, they in turn begin to believe in their own talents gifts and abilities. I have had an amazing experience as Program Director this past year. I feel extremely motivated because and hopeful for the coming year. My mantra for 2011 will be “Together we can do even more” as I strive to provide as many other interested adults with the chance to “show up” and make a difference in the life of a young person. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.