The particaption of youth in Open Space

[Chris Corrigan]

I'm with Ric on this one.  I recently held an OS with 250 people in attendance,
a number of which were "powerful" leaders.  There were a bunch of youth present
for the opening and nothing stopped them from getting into the fray, as one
would expect from anybody with passion for the topic.

The cool thing, though was what happened during the day.  We held the OS in a
community centre (an Aboriginal Friendship Centre) which is in the heart of the
downtown Aboriginal community in Vancouver.  It so happened that at the same
time as the OS was going on the youth drop in centre was receiving its new pool
table, so there were about 40 youth hanging around and setting it up and
providing all kinds of advice.  It didn't take long for them to be attracted to
the din coming from the gym where our OS was in progress, and groups of four and
five youth kept drfiting in, pul;ling up chairs and chiming in with their two
cents worth.  Some of them ended up volunteering for recorder duties, and one
even ended up leading a discussion group.  One young woman who came in late,
immediately picked up on what was going on and found me and asked me for a piece
of paper so should could add another issue to the agenda.  She did so, and ended
up convening a small group in the last time slot.

None of these folks were present for the opening and none stayed for the
ending.  They just drifted in, graced us with their prescence and moved on.  I
still think of them fondly as angels, providing little nudges here and there to
ensure that things happened the way they were supposed to happen.

As others have said, these folks LIVE in Open Space, so I had nothing to tell
them.  It was the adults that needed unschooling.

So in short...if you do nothing differently then the youth seem to me to already
have an advantage.

Have fun.

Chris

Ric Giardina wrote:

> Andrew Donovan wrote:
>
> >  The focus is on literacy and young people. Several young people will be
> > attending (say 2-3).
> >
> > A member of the leadership team hosting the open space is very concerned
> > that the process/the facilitator ensure that the voice of the young people
> > is heard.
>
> Dear Andrew,
>
> Faced with a similar situation, I remember that Open Space runs on passion
> bounded by responsibility.  Unless the OS organizers purposely chose
> "wallflower" kids (are there any left on the planet?), you are not likely to
> find anyone with more passion than the young people.  I'd say, trust the
> process, trust the young folks, trust the adults.
>
> Ric Giardina
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