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Transformers - Mentoring the Next Generation!
Our Youth team are passionate about seeing young people realise their full potential. We believe in mentoring the next generation so that they can make good choices, be men and women of honesty and integrity and be change agents for India!
The aim of the Transformers is to provide an after school youth group for young people that are is a combination of fun, games, days out and positive teaching, as well as spending time just getting to know each young person and giving them a chance to enjoy life, and start trusting an adult who has their best interests at heart.
Our Youth team also come alongside the carers of young people in institutions to empower and encourage them as they do their best to look after large numbers of children and young people. We offer a Caring with Excellence training course to help teach and skill up how to best care for marginalised and vulnerable children and young people.
So what do the Youth team get up to?
Youth clubs!
The Youth team go to the young people, whether they live in a poor village, a slum community, or an institution or children’s home. Many hostels and children's homes are extremely basic. Children and young people are crammed into small rooms to sleep, sometimes with more than 40 in a room. The conditions are dark and damp, the food is poor and abuse can be rife.
The children have perhaps only 1-2 carers looking after more than a hundred children. These children often have no safe adult to talk to and confide in about their problems. Having not one person in the world who is looking out for them and guiding them has a huge effect on young people, causing problems with developing low self esteem and poor emotional development.
A recent study shows that a staggering 69 million children in India live in institutional care! This is due to either being poor and orphaned, or more commonly, being put into a ‘hostel’ or institution for schooling away from home.
Often the clinic team have met the young people first in their School Health check-up program, but they are much more excited when the Youth team arrive!The team runs a fun packed, exciting and life changing program for young people who are from marginalised, chaotic backgrounds or living without parental input in hostels and institutions.
Life skills
The Youth team discuss and teach important life skills, areas of life where our young people may not have had good role models from family members around them.
Through a combination of games, drama, peer to peer discussion groups and energetic positive teaching from our youth leaders, the young people we meet have the opportunity to explore and question the topics, getting them to think about the subjects, and to help them make good informed choices for their own life as they grow up into adulthood.
Topics are wide and varied, from coping with stress and anxiety at school, bereavement, bullying, talking about abuse, gender issues and the violence that surounds that, through to sex and relationships, career options and much more.
We want to see marginalised and vulnerable youth positively mentored. Research shows clearly that young people coming from chaotic, violent or neglected backgrounds are expected to 'turn out the same'... we want to intervene and change that scenario and to see the Next Generation start to shine!
Community Projects
The Transformers with their youth leaders want to lead the way of changing india with positive action too. Getting involved in community litter picking, setting up dustbins and leaflets about cleaning up India, painting the paediatric ward of a hospital, beach cleaning... whatever brings about positive change, our transformers are eager to get involved! They are such an example to the adults around them. We love it!
Residential camps and day programs of fun!
For children and young people of all ages, the Youth team love to organise and run our legendary Love the One camps! Whether it's sports, talent competitions, scavenger hunts, craft or campfire singing... our camps are always full of fabulous fun!
Many children we meet from schools, institutions or in our community clinics tell us they have no positive memories to date of their childhood. The friendships and memories they make at one of our camps leave a lasting legacy for years to come, a time of feeling safe, secure and happy.
So if you are energetic and love children and young people, why don't you consider fundraising and volunteering with us at one of our camps... it will be a life changing event for both you and hundreds of kids! Get in touch!
