Office of Overseas Programming & Training Support (OPATS) Getting Started on V 2 : Preparing and Analyzing V 2 Volunteering & Service Learning

Heroes 1.Identify at least one person you would consider your hero 2.Why are they your hero? 3.What are the qualities or traits they exhibit? 4.In what ways do you try and be like your hero?

In this session, we want to: 1.Demonstrate at least one method for helping a youth group: analyze what they already know about an issue or priority, and learn more about the issue or priority. 2.Design and present original activities to engage youth in preparing for a service project.

Step #1 Choosing a Priority Issue Uncovering the issues youth care about  Heroes activity (who and what inspires you?)  Conduct interviews with elders, family members, leaders, or youth  Assets inventory: make lists of skills, strengths, and talents they already have  Community mapping, walks, observations, & surveys  Other strategies? Games? Songs? Stories?

Step #2 Identify what we know  Discuss possible causes  Consider who is currently already involved in the issue  Start to consider some ways in which the group could address the issue  Visual organizers can be helpful (mind maps, community maps, bulletin boards, field journals)

Step #3 Find out more  Identify key questions that need to be answered  How can they learn more from those already involved?  Create a plan for how to learn more  Visual organizers, interviews, research can all be useful strategies

Sample Mind Map The center of town is full of trash People think it is okay to throw litter on the ground The dump is outside of town There are no trash cans People have no good place to dispose of household waste The leaders were supposed to arrange for trash pick up, but didn’t People get sick from drinking water from the river near town – it’s full of trash Business owners clean up their store areas

Create your own Mind Maps  Break into groups according to the key development issue from Session #1  Choose 1 or 2 people to serve in the role of Volunteer/partner facilitators, the rest will be in the role of “youth” in the service group  Facilitators ask guiding questions to help the youth create their own mind maps.  For the 2 nd map, choose new facilitator(s)  20 minutes to complete both maps

Helping youth prepare and learn Each group is going to design an interactive, engaging activity to do with a youth group that will help them: 1.Discover what inspires them or discover their own talents and strengths 2.Select a priority topic or issue or analyze what they already know about it 3.Analyze what they need to learn and how they are going to do it.