Over the last few months I have been getting know the teens of the Beit Shemesh with the Friends by Nature (FBN) Ethiopian community empowerment organization. I've been doing this with the goal of eventually leading
youth group programming and for the mean time helping as an extra staff member and
general positive presence. Like in any community, but especially in this one, it is hugely important to be trusted and respected before beginning to work with them (Note: Things have changed since an earlier post and I am working on this project now instead of forming a youth group in Jerusalem).
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| The Narkis neighborhood of Beit Shemesh |
The initial interactions with the kids
most often went something like this: I would ask one of them what their name
is, which would be met by a response of, "My name is 'nothingatall'"
(or some sort of curse word...). At first I was sort of insulted but quickly
came to recognize this not as a personal affront but something like a new
member initiation ritual - testing me to see how I'd respond: If I'd be the
American/faranji who was just lost, if I’d be clueless and get laughed at, if
I’d get angry that they were obviously messing around with me, or would I go
with the flow.
This was not the first time
I've been in this sort of scenario this year and I’ve adapted my strategies
along the way and have gotten to the point where I've got a number of
(relatively) witty responses ready to get a laugh out of them (mostly out of
shock that I even caught the joke in the first place), like responding in kind
with a name that clearly is not a name (like "Something" or
"Whatsityourbusiness"), or telling them what a creative name their
parents gave them. Once they recognize that I'm "OK" the next
conversation often starts with them asking, "So if you're from America -
do you know Tupac?" (an American rapper who is somewhat of adopted cultural hero for
many young Ethiopian Israeli...)
Over the weeks I've succeeded in starting to get to know the community and even began recruiting for the youth group I was looking to organize for 6-7th graders. Recruitment for my group and other groups like it is shockingly different here in this difficult neighborhood than anywhere else I've been. With the guidance of the FBN staff, the advice I kept getting over and over was that the only way to recruit was to go to the streets, and chat up the kids who were looking bored sitting around the neighborhood... and so I did. Going against my better instincts (which, rationally, told me that is was inappropriate to approach kids on the street to offer for them to come hang out with me and other kids in a bomb shelter for an hour a week doing activities) I walked the streets of the Narkis and Shemona Komot neighborhoods of Beit Shemesh with flyers, a big smile, and a slight accent and talked up every unoccupied kid I could find. Essentially I had to be a door to door salesman, selling promises of fun youth group activities.
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| My recruitment flyer: "If you're a student in 6th or 7th grade, you're in luck!!!..." |
Over the weeks I've succeeded in starting to get to know the community and even began recruiting for the youth group I was looking to organize for 6-7th graders. Recruitment for my group and other groups like it is shockingly different here in this difficult neighborhood than anywhere else I've been. With the guidance of the FBN staff, the advice I kept getting over and over was that the only way to recruit was to go to the streets, and chat up the kids who were looking bored sitting around the neighborhood... and so I did. Going against my better instincts (which, rationally, told me that is was inappropriate to approach kids on the street to offer for them to come hang out with me and other kids in a bomb shelter for an hour a week doing activities) I walked the streets of the Narkis and Shemona Komot neighborhoods of Beit Shemesh with flyers, a big smile, and a slight accent and talked up every unoccupied kid I could find. Essentially I had to be a door to door salesman, selling promises of fun youth group activities.
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| Ethiopian adults playing cards in the Narkis neighborhood (the nicer looking buildings on the other side of the road are already part of a different neighborhood) |
Finally, this last week I ran my first
youth group program for junior high schoolers. Seven kids from the neighborhood
were waiting for me at the shelter in which we do our programming when I showed
- a huge success. I ran a simple program made up of fun little teamwork games
with the goal of coaxing the kids out of their shells and force them to work
together (like the human knot and water balloon toss). It will take some time
for them to warm up to each other as a group and to me. Though I will only be
working with them until the end of August, the hope is that another volunteer from
FBN will take over leading the group once I’m gone.
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| My kids during our opening activity |
In the few months that I have left here my goals are to
provide them with structured, fun, group forming activities, take them on a
hike outside of Bet Shemesh, and give them an opportunity to deal with new
topics and concepts that they haven’t previously dealt with before. This will be likely my biggest
challenge and I’m looking forward to it - the "hands on" part of my
fellowship is the most fulfilling. It's an important thing that I've
learned/confirmed about myself is that working with people is what truly fills
my "soul."
