Overview of the Spiritual Empowerment of Junior Youth Program
The Magdalene Carney Bahá\’í Institute (MCBI) is a non-profit organization providing educational and service programs to children, youth, and adults of all faiths and denominations. These programs are designed to empower individuals by developing their spiritual and intellectual capacities for the purpose of service to their community. The Institute serves communities and neighborhoods in five States: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
Recognizing the inherent, growing, and untapped capacity of junior youth (11-14 years old) to contribute towards the betterment of the world, the Spiritual Empowerment of Junior Youth Program at MCBI is designed to assist them in navigating this crucial stage of their life, developing a moral structure as well as their powers of expression, all for the purpose of empowering them to direct their energies toward the advancement of civilization. In these years of transition for a historically underestimated, misunderstood, and neglected portion of our population the physical, emotional, and mental changes take on special significance in the context of emerging new powers, awareness, and consciousness. Therefore, it is in this period when the junior youth in this program embark on a life dedicated to the service of humanity.
The Institute provides training and practice for youth and young adults (usually 18-35) to form junior youth groups that meet once a week to explore concepts of justice, unity, cooperation, and equality in the context of their daily lives. Through a process of action and reflection — and most central to the purpose of these junior youth groups — they strive to apply this learning in their own neighborhoods and communities through service activities. Those who become trained are called an “animator” whose multifaceted role is one of being a true friend who helps the junior youth remain hopeful and assured that they will not only protect themselves against the negative influences of society, but will recognize their nobility as human beings and dedicate their lives to act as unifying forces and champions of justice and service. As they engage in these activities, they find themselves in the company of like-minded individuals who become their co-workers in this process of building up a new civilization.
The facilitation of these groups acknowledges the need for the junior youth to be the animating force of their endeavors and for them to express their hopes and needs – a junior youth group for junior youth by junior youth. The animator assists them in articulating and accomplishing the group’s evolving goals by creating an environment of mutual support conducive to developing the perception and patterns of thought and behavior that will characterize them as contributors to the betterment of humanity.
Training sessions are designed to reach out to interested youth and young adults in pursuing this unique volunteer opportunity. MCBI offers both weekend intensive training sessions at the institute or weekly training sessions in communities themselves. In an experiential learning method, the training emphasizes learning through practice and thus all volunteers will be accompanied by experienced animators until they feel comfortable and confident in their skills to establish and sustain a junior youth group of their own. MCBI primarily focuses on establishing junior youth groups in neighborhoods or in collaboration with after-school programs, youth organizations, and youth programs.
