A couple months ago, my friend, Kellan and his parents came to visit Dollars for Change on their way from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. Kellan is on sabbatical working for Grassroot Soccer, an amazing organization that educates youth on HIV/AIDS through soccer (if you haven't heard of them, check it out). They were kind enough to send their pictures on to me which is great because I don't get to take pictures of many of our meetings when they are discussion-based (plus his camera is way better than mine).
In the activity below, we broke the big group into smaller groups and handed them all a few tiny sheets of paper. The kids in each group were asked to think about the "ingredients" it takes to make a "good person" in the same way that baking a cake requires certain ingredients. While sitting in our circles, the kids wrote down their ingredients and confidentially put them in the box in the middle. Before revealing their answers, we discussed what it meant to be successful in life. The kids all concluded that success didn't necessarily mean having a lot of money or possessions. I asked all the kids to right down what they wanted to be when they grew up, and to put those answers in a different pile in the box.
With the two piles in front of me, ingredients and aspirations, I picked one from each pile and we analyzed. For example, the "caring for others" ingredient along with "I want to be a policewoman". Everyone was in agreement that you have to care for others in order to be a successful policewoman. We discussed each random pairing and agreed that in order to fulfill these aspirations - doctor, teacher, nurse, policewoman - they also required these same "ingredients" - honesty, generosity, love, etc. It proved to be a great exercise, fully powered by the kids and their own ideas.
Thank you Kellan, Brendan and Lyn!
