Youth
animators spring to life
|
THAMES,
New Zealand, 28 August 2003 (BWNS) --
"I feel animated -- like a picture suddenly
given life!" says Anisa Beckman, 22, who
recently qualified to assist the development of
junior youth (12 to 14-year-olds).
Anisa
attended a five-day residential
"Animator" course here and, like the
other graduates, is keen to employ her new
skills.
Graduates,
who are in their late teens or early 20s, return
home to help groups of young teenagers to devise
and implement plans of community service as well
as look to their spiritual, intellectual, and
creative development.
"Animators"
encourage junior youth in New Zealand to devote
themselves to tasks like gardening at homes for
the elderly, taking young people with
disabilities to entertainment parks, and taping
books for the blind. |
Animated...Anisa Beckman (front), Terra Lew,
Nava Derakhshani (second row), Abdullah Norozi,
Ezra Hopkins, Tessa Lew (back row).
|
The
Aotearoa Institute, a training board founded and run by
the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of New
Zealand, organizes the course.
Spokesperson
Mary Ann White said the training course combines
learning and practice.
"It's
a very active course and quite demanding," she
said.
For Anisa
Beckman, who lives in Kaikoura, on the east coast of the
country's South Island, the benefits of the course are
clear.
"This
training has reminded me of the enormous energy and
potential that junior youth have," she said.
"This
has stopped me from holding myself back and just leaving
them [junior youth] to it, and to start working through
this program and to stoke their fire for learning, for
action and for doing good and useful things."
One of her
co-students on the course, Nava Derakhshani, 18, said
that as a result of the course she realized the positive
effect that interaction by people her age has on younger
youth, especially in the development of self-esteem.
"I
hope to take [this experience] back to my home country
and future countries that I may reside and serve
in," said Nava, who is spending a year here away
from her Botswana home in a "youth year of
service", a period when young Baha'is volunteer to
devote themselves full-time to serving their society
through their religion.
This is the
fourth year of the Animator training course, and was
special because some earlier trainees, such as
19-year-olds Terra Lew, from Christchurch, and Abdullah
Norozi, from Papakura, were returning to carry out the
training.
Mr. Norozi
said that before getting involved he did not take much
notice of younger youth.
"But
ever since I have made a conscious effort in involving
myself with the junior youth and helping and supporting
them in their endeavors."
The course
held this month was the fourth since training began in
2000. The original trainer of the Animators was Nina
Perez, who came from Mexico to live in New Zealand while
pursuing tertiary studies. She and Mr. Norozi also
carried out additional training in Perth, Western
Australia.
The
Animators also contribute their skills in Baha'i
children's camps, where pre-teens and junior youth
combine studies of art and spirituality with games and
fellowship, appreciation and enjoyment of nature, and
outdoor activities.
