Week 4 - Ice Cream & CV's

Monday - Team Ben's CVs

"Keep it simple and professional. The only purpose of a CV is to get you into the interview"

Amazing Anhar

As this was the first week of the banana split (group split into 2) we thought we'd add some ice cream. Team Ben now come in on Mondays and Team Jerry on Wednesdays.


Started with a little chat on CV's to see where everyone's at. Some have CV's, some don't but on the whole all could do with some work. Apparently some schools have employment sessions where they create what our group referred to as "poor quality" CV's. Awesome Aminul currently holds the record for most CV's given out with total of 31.


We role played to see how well our Monday children perform in a 'giving out CV's to retail stores' situation. Bimbo Bobby was doing well before a fit of giggles put an end to any further progress. Awesome Aminul outshone the rest asking to see the manager and offering his skills on a voluntary basis to show his 'stuff'. Although, needs to be careful not to come across as over confident.


Wednesday - Team Jerry's CVs

"You all have references... if you tell someone you have no references, it's going to look like you've left a path of destruction behind you"

Psycho Peter

We played CV hangman. Just like normal hangman, but instead of finding a word the group must build a CV from scratch or get 'hanged'. They performed extremely well and left me with no choice but to throw in a few hangman lines for no reason other than my own amusement.

Anhar explains the fundamentals of creating a strong CV

'Giving out CV's to retail stores' exercise went well. There was some uproar as to why Funny Fokrul should get to see the store manager when all previous participants had also asked to see him. They had all been told he wouldn't be around until the end of the day, yet none had said they would come back later. Fokrul going last had simply been in the right place at the right time. Like Aminul in the previous group, Fokrul also offered his skills as a volunteer when told there were no vacancies.


Next week will be purely CV building to create harder, better, faster, stronger CVs before breaking up for christmas.

Week 3 - Sometimes a Banana Split is the only way

Monday - Banana Split

I've always tried my best to stay in charge and maintain control... it wasn't until today that I realised what we needed all this time wasn't control, but freedom

Peter

With Y2J we are trying to create leaders, not robots.

Robots need to be told what to do
Leaders need to be able to think freely and creatively about what to do

Robots need rules (see I Robot, The 3 Laws)
Leaders need the independence and strength of mind be able to break the rules when they are not working

Robots need to charge
Leaders need to breathe

Project Codename: Banana Split
Today Anhar told the group about our decision to split the group into two. There were mixed feelings toward this, but unmistakably a lot of sad, little faces filled the room. Half could see the sense in it, and half wanted the group to stay as it was. We could both see clearly it would be better for all involved to split them into two groups. Instead of 12 weeks, it would become a 20 week program, with more time spent on each participant to boost their personal development.

However, something we didn't plan on was the group calling for a quick discussion on this as it would largely affect them. Quietly bemused, this was when Anhar made a bold move, telling them we would leave the room and let them decide amongst themselves and go with whatever they decided. Only condition was it had to be a large majority vote. We knew that essentially:

1 large group    =   more fun

2 small groups  =   more personal development

...and we also knew which side we needed to win. But I think Anhar must have spotted something I didn't to have given them the freedom to make the choice themselves.

As we stealthily pressed our ears against the door, we could hear the two groups arguing back and forth the advantages and disadvantages of each option:

"...more time to spend on each of us individually"
"...the amount we learned today, we could have learned in half the time with a smaller group"
"...don't forget, we come here to learn how to get jobs"

We re-entered the room in time to catch the tail end of the debate, where, as someone called for a vote there was a clear winner.

"All who want to split into 2 smaller groups, raise your hand..."

...I made a mental note to high-5 Anhar later.

Today some demonstrated leadership

Others demonstrated foresight

But every single one of them showed their ability to work as a team and make a majority decision prioritising the good of the whole group.

We've spent literally tens of hours creating material and workshops plans, and yet one of the best outcomes so far in the program has come out of something spontaneous. Although we ended up in the in the same situation as planned, the journey there was different. I thought we would need to convince them this was a good idea, instead they convinced themselves.

In future, we'll be sticking a lot less rigidly to our workshop plans, and just going with it.

Wednesday - Bowling for Columbia
We took a well earned break from workshops to go out bowling. We split into 3 teams and slapped a box of celebrations on the table for the winning team. A picture is worth a thousand words so:

 

 

 

 

 

1st Place

2nd Place

3rd Place

Good times...

Week 2 - Overcoming Barriers with Aeroplanes

"It's hard knowing that the biggest barrier to employment is not knowing the barriers to employment"

Amazing Anhar

Monday - Barriers

This week, as usual, Anhar starts by asking our Y2J cubs how much they already know about today's topic: barriers to employment. After experiencing our weekly tumbleweed moment, Anhar swiftly moves on to give a few examples before probing their minds for more.

The above photo was taken approximately 3 minutes after Anhar's question, most of which was filled with an awkward silence or the occasional cough... however, our group's consistent lack of knowledge about employment topics prompted me to ask them the following:

Are you learning about employment anywhere else?

I had a feeling I knew what the answer was going to be, but to make it a little more visually meaningful I had them make paper aeroplanes and answer in the following way:

     If Yes - throw your planes at Funny Fokrul

     If No - throw your planes at Amazing Anhar

(Video coming soon)

This was great fun for everyone and was definitely not a waste of paper! Unfortunately, the paper they used for the planes was bought with the last of our funding, so there will be no bowling trip this year...


Wednesday - Buzzwords

Buzzwords. We had our Y2J cubs buddy up and describe their partner with 3 buzzwords, one of which was a lie. We wanted to test:

1. Their knowledge of buzzwords
2. Perception of each other
3. Ability to spot a lie

Pretty soon the wild Salem Witch Trialesque accusations of lying started flying around the room. Also for some reason the word "sophisticated' seemed to be repeatedly, and correctly, called out as a lie (why do we have no sophisticated candidates?).

Although very entertaining to watch, it began getting a little rowdy. Methinks classroom mentality is setting in. Amazing Anhar was forced to play bad cop in dealing with the interruptions and regular latecomers.

Moving forward from this, we have decided to split our group in half, one half to come in on Mondays and the other on Wednesdays over a total of 24 weeks instead of 12. This will create the atmosphere of a team, rather than a class and make the groups easier to manage.

Concerns have been raised over whether the Y2J workshops are "too much fun" and with not enough learning about employment happening. We created Y2J to be 80% fun and 20% serious at the beginning and slowly transforming into 80% serious, 20% fun towards the end, but we always make the material as interesting and interactive as our creative minds can conjure.

This is simply because we know from experience how hard it is to get anyone, especially young people to commit to something long term.  When Anhar told our Y2J cubs about these concerns there were immediate cries of indignation, with everyone saying thats what they love most about the program: that they can learn how to get a job in a fun way.

Plus, I am determined for this to be different from mainstream school methods of controlling children in the classroom through the use of fear, i.e. detentions and the threat of calling parents.