Welcome FlowerChild
With 30 children in a class and only 1 teacher it is very hard to give all the students enough attention and develop their talents to the max. Dave Eggers, who is a writer of books and storywriter for magazines, realized that one on one tutoring is the best encouragement for children. He set up a network of volunteers, most of them writers with flexible working hours, to help children with their homework in a fascinating and innovating way. Dave gave a presentation and won a prize with his initiative. The presentation video on the homepage is really funny and heartwarming and makes you want to participate too. (www.onceuponaschool.com)
Being an immigrant in a new country is not always easy. I know from experience. Our integration went smoothly and we feel very welcome and happy where we live. For many other immigrants this is not the case, especially for groups of second generation foreigners. Every western European country has groups of young (mostly) men who do not fit in and start bothering, threatening, robbing and frightening other people in the areas they live in. This happens in all big cities and is an extreme nuisance. We experienced that too when we still lived in Amsterdam. There is of course a reason why so many young healthy guys choose to be a nuisance instead of nice, well-behaved, respected citizens. Governments spend millions of euro’s trying to change their behaviour, to get them back on track. But the social system is failing here. Social workers cannot help these young men finding their passion in life. We live in a world where we expect governments to have or find a solution for all the problems in society. That is what we pay taxes for, don’t we. I think we redeem with that our responsibility to change things ourselves.
If every successful man or woman would spend a couple of hours with a young person who is about to slide away. If we would just point out to this young person that his contribution is valuable and useful, that there are examples of young Moroccans who are successful, and that there are people wanting to help (voluntary) this individual who does not get any positive feedback elsewhere. Wouldn’t that make a difference?
A few months ago we had the plan to develop a website where juniors can contact seniors for advise on school, education, career or social issues. Everyone at several points in their lives can use guidance from more experienced and older people, other than parents. Almost always it leads to a clearer vision of what a young person wants or does not want. I have had this experience myself when I was younger and I am very motivated to pass my lessons on to the younger generation as well. If everybody would do this, I am convinced that together we can create a happier next generation and as a result change the world.
As with a lot of great plans, this idea was parked because there simply was not enough time to develop it. But I found out today that it already exists. Check out www.mentoring.org.
