Building Community Capacity One Story at a Time

Last night as I shared the following story with my husband, I realized I should be telling you too. So here goes....

Since I am FINALLY ready to get back into the routine with the small but mighty group of Hope Kids that I worked with last year, I gave each of them a call last night. The first young lady shouted YIPEE when I told her I would be out Wednesday at lunch to start planning Hope-Focused Community Service projects with her and her group. I thought that was pretty cool.

However, it was during my conversation with the fourth Hope Kid that I nearly fell off my chair.

She calmly informed me that the girls had been meeting on our regular weekday since the beginning of the school year. When I asked what they have been doing, she said, "Well we've been brainstorming ideas for projects and how to get started." Her comment reminded me what they told me last year toward the end of our time together. That was that they were committed to our work together because they were in charge of the hope-focused projects ~ most importantly that their voice counted. Since one of the essential elements of the HOPE KIDS programs (Hope-focused Service-learning and Hope-Focused Community Service) is student voice, I was pretty pleased.

I am, as you can tell ecstatic, to know that so much more happens when we enable children and youth to be more in charge of their learning. I am learning so much from these amazing young ladies. I am sure I will have much more to share with you in the very near future.

In the meantime, I would like to thank the St. Albert Rotary Club, The St. Albert Gazette, St. Albert Family and Community Social Services, TD Trust and the Million Dollar Round Table for their past support in making this particular HOPE KIDS program a reality.

Humming Bird's Wings of Flight

Last night I experienced what I might call my first anxiety attack about my decision to return to school this fall to embark on obtaining another degree. 

Here's what I learned when I quieted myself enough to connect to what I am feeling as September looms:

 

As the panic dances on the tip of each nerve

I feel a zillion laser beams shooting outward to the very outer edge of my being.

Each as tight as a violin string vibrating like a humming bird's wings.

If one breaks the music will stop.

And so, I know, I must allow the silent tension to pull me forward ~ 

Hope and Being at Peace

I am thinking of late about different hope definitions in relation to my own actions, thoughts, feelings, and relationships. In particular, I am thinking about how hope guides my thoughts, actions, feelings, and relationships as I move forward in time. 

First, let me share with you the three hope definitions that I rely on.

Stephenson (1991) defines hope as “a process of anticipation that involves the interaction of thinking, acting, feeling, relating, and is directed toward a future fulfillment that is personally meaningful".

 Dufault and Martocchio (1985) describe hope as “a multidimensional dynamic life force characterized by a confident yet uncertain expectation of achieving a future good which, to the hoping person, is realistically possible and personally significant".

Jevne (1994) describes hope as enabling individuals to envision a future they are willing to participate. I like to add 'envision and work toward' a future in which they can participate with interest.

In each of these definitions there is a sense of moving toward a desired or good future as determined by the individual. In preparation for a paper that I am working on, I have been reading how different philosophers, beginning with Aristotle, describe this movement toward what is determined to be good. 

So this morning, I asked myself, 'How do I determine what is good for me?' Of course I believe how I determine what is good for me has been and is learned from my experiences along the way. So I expect that this whole posting might be different if I wrote it yesterday or tomorrow. Having said that, I came up with the following - "BEING AT PEACE" with who I am and becoming (Greene, 1995) is critical to my hope (and hopeful self). When I am not feeling at peace with what has happened in the past, present or what I envision might happen in the future as a result of my past or present, then I do not feel hopeful. Having just discovered this about myself, I believe that what happens then is that I search for thoughts, actions, and relationships that help me feel more at peace and as a result more hopeful.

Thinking about this as I post this blog, I would add that, Mahatma Ghandi's quote:

Whenever you are in doubt, apply the following test: recall the face of the poorest and weakest person you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to them.

is of late has been a huge determining factor in whether or not I feel at peace/hopeful.

HOPE KIDS NAIT Summer Camp

Here's what I've been up to since my last posting....

http://www.inews880.com/Channels/Reg/LocalNews/Story.aspx?ID=1115430

Hope Stories

Here's something you might like to see. Grade nine students at McCauley School have the texts of their digital stories published in the local paper. Check them out at:

edmontonexaminer.com/Community/Articles.aspx?id=3150&catname=hope+at+McCauley+school

Telling Our Stories

Last Thursday I heard a high school student tell a group of adults around a table discussion that one of the barriers she feels to attending school is that there are few opportunities to tell her story. What she would like others to know is how difficult it is to ask her grandmother for bus money. She is afraid to hear what she knows in her heart. If she gave up on her dream of becoming a welder there would be less stress on her grandmother and family. However, giving up is not an option for this determined young lady who asked us to consider the consequences. As a hopeful person, she want others to HEAR her story so that she can continue to imagine and work toward the day when she can pay for her own bus pass. For "when we hope we detach ourselves from the story of our lives up to now. . . .The hopeful person is on the boundary between old formulations of the self and new formulations not yet born (Barnard, 1995, p. 50).

I believe we have a responsibility to find a way to do what the adults at Eastglen High School did for this young lady. They created a space for her to courageously put her hope of becoming a welder for others to hear even though she prefaced it with, "You might thing this is crazy, but I love helping my grandfather weld and so..."

I left the table asking myself what is the smallest thing I can do to support her hope? Perhaps allowing her story to become part of my story is a start to knowing what I need to do next!

While Hoping for a Cure

Below are some of the hopes that participants at a "Diabetic Peer Support Hope Retreat" named after participating in hope activities. I wanted to share them with you because on the first night together the theme centered around hopes for a cure. By the third day together, the participants' hopes had shifted and that elevated my hope. When I saw them at a follow-up session, three weeks later, the first thing I heard one participant say to another was, "Do you want to walk with me three times a week at the mall?" Another participant shared what he has been collecting in his hope bag since we last met. 

- I hope I will be more knowledgeable for tomorrow.

- I hope we'll understand each other better.

- I hope I can keep my eyesight.

- I hope we can help the Youth Diabetic Prevention Project.

- I hope I can control my cholesterol and blood pressure in choosing foods more closely in my diet.

- I hope I can understand more about diabetes and hope that someday there will be a cure.

- I hope I will live better.

- I hope I am becoming a healthy person to help others.

- I hope I can control my blood sugar level by exercising and sticking to healthy foods.

- I hope I will feel better about myself.

- I hope I exercise three times this week.

- I hope I will see some changes in the near future.

- I hope I can learn more about diabetes and practice caution.