Sagamok has HEART

For all the loyal blog readers, I'm sure there is one or two out there, this is my second time in Sagamok.  The first time I was there, I was working with the youth, now I was working with the parents in a session called "Walking in the shoes our youth."

The HEART initiative is a community based program to create health and wellness for everyone.  While the young people were learning helping skills, the parents and I hung out for the day learning a little bit more about their kids.  In order to build a sense of community, we need to have the willingness to understand and respect one another.

I had the absolute pleasure to be working with Dwayne and Sly from Wiky.  A few years back, they participated in my Training of Trainer Program, and now they are traveling around making a difference.

Here two participants are sharing about how they could support their community youth.

In order to understand young people we first have to look at how things have evolved culturally.  Each group was presented with a decade and they had to create a buddy from that era.  They had to name him, what was his values, interests, hobby's etc.  It was a great activity because it gave people awareness of how things things have changed and that we must respect the young people's interests.  Like adults and elders era, youth are just living in theirs and that must be respected.

Here are the drawings, my favourite has to be the afro.  

Thank you Sagamok for reminding the rest of us that the solutions always lie within the community and we must empower the people in order to achieve a strong community.