February 2020, Newsletter

Youth Leadership and Student Ambassadors

It is becoming more and more evident that the leadership of young people will be critical as our societies wrestle with our globe’s deepest problems. We believe that developing this leadership is now a critical mandate of education. With this in mind, it has been exciting to watch this process start to take root in several of our key education hubs and sites, where select groups of youth ambassadors are being trained more intensively than the rest of their school and, in turn, taking a lead in teaching other students how to work with the Compassionate Systems framework tools and practices. Right now, the primary groups are in Denmark (Maglegårdsskolen) and Indonesia (BSJ), with another beginning in Hong Kong this spring. In the coming year, we look forward to Youth Ambassador groups developing in other hubs and sites in the global network.

The other element of this youth work consists of connecting these local groups with the intention of creating an international network of young people who can assist each other in various ways. This work is being stewarded by Gustav Böll (Youth Coach at the Center for Systems Awareness) and Antoine Beland, both are part of the initial cohort of Master Practitioners. Recently there have been introductory workshops in Copenhagen and in Montreal.

Two additional youth workshops will be held in the next six months, one in Greater Lawrence, MA in February and one prospectively at MIT in mid-summer.

See photos of Youth in Denmark, Indonesia and Montreal below;