The Future and Sustainability

We want to carry out this training gathering for Youth Workers to develop the participants competencies in the area of Sustainability and the Future and their ability to work with young people in this area. Young people actively seek guidance and counsel concerning the future. Youth workers need competencies in the area of sustainability and the future in order to work effectively with young people.

This series of five processes seeks to equip Youth Workers with the competencies to work with young people. It seeks to provide a range of tools that Youth Workers can use that will assist young people find the ideas that will bring about the changes that will create a future that is sustainable. The process is designed around the five colour intelligences (White, Green, Yellow, Blue and Red) and the five objectives of this Youth Workers training gathering are as follows:

1. How sustainable is the world in which we live? To develop competencies in knowing where we are in the bigger sustainability picture. Being able to see the pattern of rise and fall of civilisations and to know where we are in this pattern (White).

2. What ideas are appearing in us? To develop competencies in creativity and using tools to find new intelligence and knowledge about the future. To know how to access inner intelligence and how to use a range of tools to do this (Green).

3. What do we want to sustain? To develop the skills to see what has sustained through time and to bring forward the best into the future. Being able to apply this both in each person’s life, organisations and also when looking at a nation (Yellow).

4. How do we give an idea service to sustain it? Finding the right standards and principles to sustain something new (Blue).

5. Why do we want to sustain something? To develop competencies in putting ideas, new intelligence and knowledge into practice. To develop the tools to do this both within one’s own life, our organisations and nations The motto for this objective is “Don’t just talk about it, do it” (Red).

The world presents many issues to young people, which creates a need in them to find a better way forward. Young people are both the creators of the future and the inheritors of today’s world, in which there are clearly major challenges that call for enormous change. Young people naturally seek a better world and have huge energy and drive to bring about change. They also have a natural talent for ideas with openness to new possibility and a vision that is limitless. Young people have the ability to create a future that is sustainable and are not bound by classic patterns of thinking that have led to the challenges that we presently face. Youth Workers have a key role in being able to mentor, guide and facilitate the processes young people have and need the skills to work with young people in this very creative area.