It Takes a Child to Raise a Whole Village

Kretzmann and Schmitz (1995) discuss the importance of encouraging youth to make meaningful contributions to their communities:

"Children and villages. Villages and children. In recent years, lots of people have been rethinking their relationships to each other. The cliched rendition, usually attributed to African origins and now almost a mantra, has obviously struck a responsive chord. It does take a whole village--not just parents, schools, or child-care and child-development professionals--to raise our kids. The invitation for a broader commitment to our young people is clearly welcome and long overdue.

But the cliche is incomplete at best. It still leaves us with a set of assumptions about young people that we believe are historically unprecedented and powerfully destructive. In the cliche, people (adults) in villages act to 'raise' young people. Young folks are the objects of the action, never the subjects. They are passive and useless. They are defined as deficient--of knowledge, of skills, of any useful capacities--and relegated with their cohorts to the filling stations we call schools. The assumption is that, magically, at age 18 or 21, young people will emerge from their years of being filled, and re-enter the community as full and useful contributors.

This formula is a disaster. Not only has it produced a generation of young people who think of themselves as useless, but it also has isolated that generation from productive interaction with older generations. It has relegated more than a third of our citizens to inaction or worse and has deprived our youth of the experience necessary for fulfilling their roles as citizens and contributors to the community. Our villages suffer when we fail to empower all members of our society, but especially when we fail those who represent our nation's future.

Clearly, as individuals and as communities, we need to re-examine how we view young people and their role in our society. Rather than passive vessels to be filled during the first 18 years of life, children can be key members of our community. Whether 'A' students or drop-outs, all-star athletes or suburban skateboarders, young people can help raise our villages when they are seen as individuals with skills and capabilities, with ideas and enthusiasm. For our villages to be whole, our young people must be valued.

Young people who contribute to raising our villages come in a range of ages--from young kids of six to young adults of twenty-six. These are not young people who fit media stereotypes--they are anything but apathetic, uncaring, dumb, violent, and lost. They are, in fact, gifted, skilled, and resourceful. And they are ready to contribute their gifts to all of our communities.

Recently, a coalition of Wisconsin foundations, including the Johnson Foundation, convened focus groups of young people and adults who 'serve' young people. Not surprisingly, the survey found that perceptions diverged. On one hand, the adults worried about all of the needs and problems that young people had and how adults could remedy them. The young folks, on the other hand, focused on their desire to contribute, to do more. They expressed strong yearning for purpose, for meaning, for ways to be useful to the wider community, especially in non-patronizing, intergenerational efforts. These values far outstripped their yearning for material things--the stereotype most often associated with young desires.

There is a disconnect here between what adults perceive young people need and what young people really want. We have fallen into the habit of expecting too little of our young people when, all the while, they want to shake off pessimism and contribute their gifts and talents. Communities abound with opportunities for young people to contribute, but their participation is too often marginalized and tokenized. Young people have the gifts and talents to raise their villages. They lack only the confidence of their villages in them to do it.

What to do? Fortunately for all of us, young people themselves are taking the initiative to redefine their relationships with the rest of the village. In community after community, young people are reasserting their identity as subjects and actors, as people with a broad range of capacities and resources to contribute to the well-being of their villages.

In fact, contrary to media stories that state again and again how apathetic youth are, young people have been organizing themselves as contributors to our communities. They have started groups such as Public Allies, Youth on Board, the Youth Volunteer Corps, Campus Opportunity Outreach League, Funds for the Community's Future, GreenCorps, City Year, Teach for America, Who Cares magazine, and many others--all national organizations run by young adults.

Public Allies, an organization founded at a Wingspread conference four years ago, places young leaders from diverse backgrounds, 'Allies,' in community service apprenticeships in six cities throughout the United States. The Allies work full-time, four days a week taking on specific challenges with significant responsibilities at non-profit organizations, schools, and government agencies. On the fifth day each week, the Allies come together for leadership and professional training and to design and implement team-service projects to improve the community. Public Allies empowers young people to empower others--to raise villages. Here are sketches of four young people who have helped to raise their villages:

• Angel was released from a five-year prison sentence at the age of 21. He began reading while in prison and began college soon after his release. He also began volunteering at a local youth center that was surrounded by gang activity. He began building relationships with children in the neighborhood, showing them the choices they had and the consequences of their actions. Today, Angel is a part-time student who works with first-time juvenile offenders through a county government initiative, helping them to find their talents and to pursue them.

• Dan grew up in a well-do-do suburb and began attending a private college. During a summer break, he was struck by a news story about discrimination against kids with HIV. The next summer, he worked with a few friends to start a summer camp for HIV-infected and affected children. During the rest of the year, Dan served as a health educator at a Boys & Girls Club. Dan is currently working to start a new program to provide community service opportunities and leadership training for teenagers infected and affected by the HIV virus.

• Carmella was a recipient of multiple social services while growing up. One of them, the foster care system, placed her at a boarding school, which dropped her off at the Salvation Army at the age of 18. Homeless, and with no family, Carmella began volunteering at her homeless shelter, while finishing her high-school diploma. Carmella's courage and tenacity led her to become a board member of a grass-roots advocacy organization; to be the first woman selected for the city's midnight basketball league; and to be adopted by the volunteer director of a homeless advocacy group. As an Ally, Carmella organized a youth council in the housing development where she played basketball. The council suggested to city leaders ways in which the housing development could be improved for residents. The young people also created a video about their lives in the development. Carmella is now finishing college and continuing to work full-time with young people.

• Leif decided upon college graduation to contribute his skills and talents to his community. He was asked to create an economic development arm of a neighborhood group in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. Leif began optimistically and in 10 months initiated a job placement program that helped 60 residents into the work force, created a thriving business association, and organized two neighborhood service days. For three months, he and a team of Public Allies identified neighborhood residents' capacities, and then mobilized more than 250 volunteers--most of them neighborhood residents--for the service days. These local people, with their children, came out to rehab homes, clean vacant lots, change storms and screens for the elderly, plant community gardens, and perform other neighborhood improvement tasks during neighborhood service days. Leif now works for Public Allies, leading a team of Allies working on economic and neighborhood development.

In each case, these young people contribute to the community by helping others--especially other young people--discover their capacities and contribute. But involving young people is not just a 'good' thing for them, keeping them busy doing 'good' things. These young people and those they touch are learning what it means to be members of a village, to be citizens. They are invigorating the life of this nation and creating a foundation of leadership that is essential for the future of our democracy.

These are not isolated stories. We know of hundreds of young people like Angel, Dan, Carmella, and Leif. In fact, so many young people want to contribute that many facilitating organizations are hard pressed to meet the demand.

We can meet that demand if we begin to change our relationships with our children. It is now incumbent upon every local community to reopen itself to the gifts of its young people.

In fact, some communities have begun by constructing 'opportunity inventories,' extensive listings of all the ways in which young people already contribute, and the additional opportunities awaiting them. As part of these inventories, young people are invited to the table and asked about opportunities they see to contribute their gifts and talents.

This is but one method of sending the message clearly and concretely to all of the young people in our villages: 'Our village desperately needs you; without your contributions, we cannot be whole.' "

References