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REMEMBERING POLANDRhyana Blakeley
So I will start at the end, a night of performances of all ages representing many cultures. An incredible show of short films made in a stop motion workshop run by two 14 year olds. A member only inSubud for two weeks performing the New Zealand Haka. A combination of a teenager from the Ukraine playing with a young man from many places but currently based in Spain combining Ukrainian folk guitar with Flamenco guitar. A traditional Indonesian dance performed by a teenagerfrom the USA with Indonesian heritage. Mixed with professional musicians (I will be checking out Louiza Sofianopoulous’s album Dragons). An old friend who touched me with his singing and songwriting, a gift I didn’t know he has. And ending with a group of old and new friends playing folkmusic. This was the end of a day where we had successfully presented the new European youth team who will spread across both Zones 3 and 4. In a time when the world seams to be embracing barriers and dividing us by religion, race and passports it was amazing to see age, race, culture merge.And now the beginning: a Zone 3 meeting in 2015, where we discussed young members in the area defined as Zone 3. The old model of national youth coordinators was not working; there were too few youth in many countries apart from Subud Britain. After meetings of budget we presented the idea of getting funding to help young people from different countries meet together and help to energise each other, and pushed for a joint zone meeting (with Zone 4) with a strong youth and family programme. This was also presented at the zone 4 meeting a couple of weeks later. Getting an amazing team in place, clarifying the fund ( known as the Zone 3 youth fund), advertising the fund, advertising the gathering and expressing to people who know nothing of SYFA or big international gatherings that this was not just Latihan and meetings, that there was space and focus on babies, children, teenagers and youth both opened and non opened, parents, adults delegates andnon Subud friends, who are aware of Subud and will not wander into the latihan thinking it is another great art workshop.
Some of the members of the European Youth Team
We managed to fund 9 youth from across Zone 3, and together Zones 3 and 4 found funding for anamazing team to put together a families/youth/arts programme. The word got out and we had a large range of ages present. An idea put through by Howard Ray to recreate a Zone 3 youth coordinator to initially manage the Zone 3 youth fund helping activate and connect young members witheach other grew into a team idea. (It is not the first time we have had a Zone 3 youth coordinator but we had not had one for a while). An initial meeting was slow, and fears of taking on too much or the energy dissipating grew; but when the idea of bringing in talents and passion was there, the energy increased. Ideas of a SYA app to help communicate, a new letter with animation, an on lineshop, and many members who would be responsible for finding out who within theorganisation would get things done grew. Laughter shone out and the youth approached, many from countries in Zone 4. It then felt silly to turn away energy and ideas due to location, and a follow up meeting to which I was not present developed the idea of a Europe team, with one Zone
Rep for Zone 3 and one for Zone 4 who would communicate to the Zones and respect the existing structure, but would oversee a team of youth from all over Europe. We presented it expecting to have to persuade, but were treated with openness, enthusiasm and support, so much so that it was almost overwhelming. In amongst all of this grew youth testing sessions, and an amazing meeting where helpers and young members spoke openly with children and nonopened members about the latihan and Subud.
Youth gathered at Kolatek
In the last day I spoke with a mother who informed we she would definitely come again as long as there was a family programme like this one, and other parents who were overjoyed to have been able to be such a part of the whole gathering. A young teenager who was not born into Subud and was experiencing his first gathering asked if he would be welcome to future gatherings as he had never before experienced such an accepting and open group of people. Friends of Subud members who wanted to be opened, openings, and many, many cries of “see you soon”, “see you at thenext gathering”, “see you in Germany”!The Youth team is still growing, and I hope will continue to do so. The enthusiasm and inspiration from Basara (a youthorganised camp in Kalimantan) has lit a fire under the youth here, which hopefully will continue to burn on until and long after the World Congress.
The Zonal committees created a space to listen to and allow the youth in, to start to hand over the reigns to them with support and knowledge. In my experience of around 15 years of working for SYA, the youth do not wish to be apart, they wish to be connected and heard, and, fortunately, the older generation do not wish for the youth to disappear or shut up, but are holding out a hand for them. Hopefully we can continue to work together as one and that one of SYA remits to be a bridge between the young members and the organisation will no longer be necessary.
As a catch up the team has continued to grow with people joining it after Poland. We are about to have our second skype meeting, and already there are 4 fundraising projects underway, brainstorming and creative ideas for communicating in a way that will appeal more to youth. And talk of supporting possibly 5 maybe five families / youth gathering in Europe next year . When things are more solid we will communicate them, and introduce the team in full ( image of first skype meeting, not all participants are shown as there was not enough space for skype )