Rising with the Sun (LEAP 1 & CSP 1)

Bacala, Alexandra Rose Callanta

The first Leadership Experience through Artistic Performance (LEAP) and Community Service Project (CSP) sessions of the Vision Youth Bronze Programme started on 3 and 5 July 2018 respectively with some colors and creativity in how one see’s themselves honestly and how they would like to help their community. 

Leading the LEAP session was Daniel Kim, an experienced drama teacher who has been working for Vision Youth for 11 summers now. In previous years, Daniel Kim would organize the LEAP sessions in a way that the Visioneers would take up different roles and experience what it is like to be discriminated, underprivileged, have authority, as so on. However, last summer (his 10^th one), he decided to restructure the LEAP programme to be more focused on other types of artistic performance such as music, dance, and art. Alongside Daniel Kim was Danielle and Mason Jeddore who are visual art and physical education teachers respectively in Pikangikum First Nation.

 Prior to the activity, Danielle Jeddore gave a short introduction of the First Nation’s Medicine Wheel which was a circle divided into 4 quadrants that represented the 4 seasons, life cycle, and more. Today’s session focused on the season of summer and life stage of adolescence. It is said in the Seven Grandfather Teachings that at adolescence, one learns honesty. Danielle presented a poem in which, Gwekwaadziwin, also known as Bigfoot, stood tall and displayed himself as he is. In the same way, the adolescent Visioneers should display themselves as they are with honesty and stand as tall as the sun in midday; at its highest point. As such, the participants were tasked to paint their honest view of themselves and the sun at the centre on a black canvas with some acrylic paint which aligns to the theme of First Nation Art.

Towards the end, Daniel Kim debriefed the youths based on the dissatisfactory feedback he received on how they viewed their own artworks and taught them that it is alright to fail. He also told them to try again until they are satisfied with their art; a small challenge with a big impact to know oneself.

As for the CSP session, Matthew Luk (Bronze Program Director) and Gary Tsim (Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee) taught the participants the importance of doing a community service project and how to effectively plan one. In a quick icebreaker game, the Visioneers learnt that without communication, it is difficult to coordinate their actions as a group, but once the teammates communicate with each other, they can work together quickly and efficiently. Similarly, while planning for a CSP, groupmates need to effectively communicate to reach a consensus on what they would like to work on as a team. 

The youth were assigned to brainstorm ideas for their CSP. During this session, their communication and decision-making skills were tested as they had to decide on a project they all wanted to do as a group. Although the projects are not fixed yet, teams were given the opportunity to share their ideas which ranged from animal therapy for those with mental health challenges, collecting donations for the homeless, and physical education for middle school children. Visioneers had to explain the importance of their idea and what it meant to them to show their concern for their community. 

Overall, the sessions stimulated the Visioneers’ creative thinking to experience how one views oneself individually and as part of a community.