| Resources Unlimited Foundation |
Intergenerational Mentors |
Important Considerations: Intergenerational Mentors Program An important result of Resources Unlimited Foundation's work as an education institute in social justice and civic engagement is to make powerful connections between and among different people and to surface practical ways to help citizens cross boundaries. To create and facilitate practical structures and opportunities for people of all ages to engage mutual learning and discovery, the Foundation puts together in dialogue people who would otherwise never talk to each other. The Intergenerational Mentors Program is dedicated to mutual learning and discovery among both the older set and the younger set fairly equally. A major program component is creating opportunities for adults to learn from youth, with both groups having a chance to engage authentically. One goal is that both get to know each another better. A second is for participants to learn new ways of expanding their network of relationships through rich, meaningful conversations. A third goal is to evaluate the effectiveness of this model of collaborative learning beyond a school’s walls, testing it as a means of expansion in urban and urban-fringe environments outside an institutional school setting. For the juveniles, among other things, this program is a prelude to, and preparation for, the greater post-high school demands of higher education or vocational training. For the adults, among other things, the program is a mechanism that empowers them to work toward improved social and personal relationships with younger people. Program requirements call for mutual adjustment to the specific circumstances of setting and schedule. Sit-down engagements may sometimes occur in the adults’ homes, or just as easily in offices or boardrooms or restaurants or other private/public gathering spaces. The get-togethers are called Supper & Conversation, or Breakfast Break, or Dinner Downtown, or Lunch in the Loop. There also are other similar names that typify being together at table. Simply put, the project goal and name depend on what works best. The initiative provides youth 14 thru 20 with access to highly skilled and motivated metro-area leaders and community activists, from 55 to 75 and older. Some live locally, some beyond our immediate borders. Each works or has worked within a major urban area. They are business executives, publishers, medical professionals, CEOs, award-winning writers, accomplished social scientists, ministers and clergy and others from the healing professions. Generally the leaders are remarkably resourceful, working in partnership routinely with other organizations. They work in many fields of knowledge: community and economic development, law, finance, medicine, racial and social justice, politics, human rights, public service, and so forth. Some of the adult participants have been—and still are—in the public eye. A high school superintendent in a visible and highly vocal community, recently said, “Youth need to know what is expected of leaders, the political and social pressures they are under. And leaders need to hear what young people think of the results of that leadership. Leadership happens upfront or intentionally behind the scenes.” In most cases leaders in the program are thinkers and implementers and doers. They are capable of astutely integrating different approaches, and communicating a clear rationale for the integration. In increasingly complex time—here, think global/local interdependence and a global economy—the leaders seek for a mix of personal and professional reasons to expand their network of relationships with young people outside the classroom. Leaders are asked to see things from the kind of promising point of view that is energetic and youthful, with that point of view used judiciously, free of restrictive or obvious bias. Leaders seek opportunities to engage younger people in more personal and relaxed settings, outside the usual formality of institutional environments. The yearning in adults for a deeper social and intellectual connection with young people is a yearning true also of young people seeking deeper connection with adults. The program teaches young people, once back in a school setting, how to share information and to prepare experience-based updates, presentations, papers, exchanges, dialogues, updates, and oral reports. They share what they themselves have learned from their outside-the-classroom conversations and encounters with the leaders and community activists. It'll also happen that the youth will develop a dynamic relationship with the activist in ways that allow that activist to come into rich and useful connection with the youth’s peers at school itself, and with the youth’s family members at home. To create and facilitate the structures and opportunities for those kinds of powerful connections is a significant part of the Foundation’s mission. The Foundation works thoughtfully with systems in which youth are genuinely affirmed, in which youth are able to build self-confidence. The program teaches young people ways of asking questions about their own perceived contradictions and ambiguities in their lives at school and home—meaning those inevitable paradoxes and realities of life in a pluralist and vibrant community. At the same time the Foundation works with the leaders. It helps them know what to expect generally from youth. It asks them to be flexible, and frequently prepares them ahead of time not to pander to young people. It helps prepare adults to engage youth in back-and-forth discussion and argument about issues of interest and concern. Frequently the get-togethers involve substantive exchanges on present day social, political, economic, ethical, and moral challenges, as the challenges are put out to the adult leaders by the youth. Both of them work together to understand the challenges, and in equitable ways that empower each other. All depends. The program encourages adults and youth to do extra reading from books, magazines, newspapers, and Internet research, all in order to be better prepared to get the most out of the scheduled conversations. When necessary the Foundation also facilitates some of the follow-up work that grows naturally out of the conversations between youth and adult. It also helps evaluate program progress as well as the results from a project undertaken. In general, the subject matter of the exchanges is the very lives the individuals are living in their immediate circumstances. Often the focus is on ways adults and young people do or don’t (or, can or can’t) turn obstacles into opportunities. Youth and elders come to know each other better personally, individually. Their give-and-take happens in settings that affirm equity and right relationship as tools for empowering and generating new attitudes, new growth, and building greater understanding and knowledge. The Intergenerational Mentors Program brings different generations together in real and sustained engagement, sometimes in ways to inspire each program participant reciprocally. Actively sustaining the engagement is one measurement of real success. The program helps young people and adults both to see the rich complexity in each other and their worlds, often in new and unanticipated ways. There are plenty of youth desirous of going deeper in building relationships of trust and reciprocity with adults, relationships beyond home and school and work. Equally, there are plenty of adult leaders who are deeply emboldened and enriched by getting to know youth outside an institutional and corporate environment. Back to main programs area |
