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Our Leadership Richmond - Youth Now program is about getting young leaders engaged in their community. For program participants, though, it's also about seizing an opportunity, and taking steps today to realize their future potential. Volunteer writer Joyce Zhu spoke with Sharon To, a recent Youth Now graduate, about her experience in the program, and shares her own thoughts on an important question: when you can act now, why wait until tomorrow?
As young people, we’re bound to wonder about the future, to project ourselves into roles and niches in society to which we feel a particular connection. When we’re youngest, our impressions meagre, these roles are often far-fetched and kind of mystical, and may or may not involve the acquisition of a supernatural pet that breathes fire.
But then as we mature within that narrow margin, we begin to seek something not quite as magical, though it feels like it ought be shelved with the fantasy books at the library: passion. Most of us find something with which we are able to concoct this passion, but then we pause.
“I’m too young,” we think. We believe, “Well, I suppose I’ll have to grow up first.”
The reason for this pause is the concept of growing up. Somehow it succeeds in stalling us, until one day when we are at an age we deem grown-up, we look around and realize that we never passed a milestone called grown-up, and that it never existed at all. And a further look around reveals the passion within us has calmed to a simmer.
The Youth Now program’s purpose is contained in its name. “Youth?” with an air of apprehension that prompts us to wait. But no, don’t bother with waiting. Do it “Now.”
Youth Now, by offering high school graduates under the age of 26 an opportunity to serve as board members with local non-profit organizations, helps eradicate the mindset that youth must grow up in order to make a meaningful contribution to their community. That Youth is, in fact, Now. And for young people, acting Now is a better way to uncover the future than simply waiting.
Sharon To, a 2016 Youth Now graduate, was lucky that her teachers, mentors, and family members encouraged her to seek out meaningful opportunities for herself. However, she experienced frustration in finding a suitable and feasible means of expressing her passion and attaining her goals. This is where Youth Now came in; at just the right moment, too.
Upon completing nursing school, Sharon sought ways to become involved in her community. During her search, she stumbled upon the website for the Richmond Centre for Disability, and “a post on their homepage congratulating one of their new board members for completing the Youth Now program.”
She was then able to find further details and apply to the program. Things worked out the way they do, and the next thing she knew, Sharon was at the program orientation, the intimidation she foremost experienced dissipating immediately into an ease, for everyone had unique skills to offer. And offer them they would, as they were matched with their respective organizations, and began their year-long term as non-profit board members.
Sharon joined the board of the Richmond Society for Community Living (RSCL). “I could not be prouder of the wonderful work this board accomplishes every year,” says Sharon. “Nor could I be more humbled by their kindness and generosity in taking me in and mentoring me throughout the year.”
Her experience with Youth Now has given her hands to grasp the intangible. Namely, skills such as strategic planning, and appreciation for the organization of RSCL and its commitment to its vision and mission. One of the Youth Now leadership conferences, on democratic decision-making and Robert’s Rules, helped familiarize her with “the general governance of the board and flow of board meetings,” an asset often overlooked but nonetheless widely applicable.
Sharon explains her most memorable experience with Youth Now: a group project with her fellow participants. She speaks of a revelation: although Sharon and peers attended many of the same conferences, they were all somehow able to draw different insights from it and apply those very insights to their own boards, not unlike capturing different aspects of an overall beautiful work of art.
“We brainstormed key words that represented our community and how our past year with the program and our respective boards influenced our interpretation and understanding of that particular key word,” says Sharon. “We created a large puzzle with each puzzle piece representing our key word and when put together, represented our changed perspective of community.”
Sharon was proud not only of the end project, but of the insight her peers were able to bring to the drawing board. Because at the end of each day, we are not our own minds, as much as what suffuses from the minds of those around us. And what a spectacular mind that is.
Now, Sharon is neither the beginning nor the end of proud Youth Now participants. The program is approaching its thirteenth anniversary this year. Through testimonies from program alumni, it’s clear that Youth Now touches more than its participants. Through its participants, it touches various corners of the community, which now gleam with purpose and passion. Whether it’s appreciation for the necessary push to propel at an early age, or the take-away skills now at their disposal, participants grow through their experience in Youth Now.
Why yes, growing up is a lifelong project. A hefty one, which is never really completed. And thus, what Youth Now is essentially proposing is that while now may be precarious and one may feel unready, the opposite is never. Never includes everything missed out on and unlikely and hesitated upon because of that darned “waiting to grow up.” When given the choice of now or never, the former opens a world of possibilities, and the latter closes them off. For youth, for anything, the best time is always now.
Applications forms for the 2017-18 edition of the Leadership Richmond - Youth Now program are available online. The last day to apply is August 31, 2017. Youth Now is generously sponsored by Coast Capital Savings.
