Brainstorming technique for creating youth centre program

Aims of the tool

The aim of this tool is to stimulate creative brainstorming among the team. Group brainstorming can promote creative thinking, bring a team together, and help land ideas for a great program in the youth centre.

Description of the tool

Preparations:
- On four separate A3 papers or flipchart papers write down the task and draw one fruit (e.g. banana, cherries, pineapple, apple) next to it.

YOUTH: How do you identify the need of youth? What are the needs of youth? (Cherries)
SPACE: What makes for a good youth centre? How the facility should be designed? Building attributes. (Pineapple)
PROGRAM: What makes a good youth centre program? What activities should be included in the youth centre program? (Banana)
PRACTICALITIES: Quality and time management. How to ensure good quality of the youth centre program? How to prepare the agenda for youth centre program? (Apple)

Time needed: 60 min.

Instructions:
1. Invite the participants to take part in a quick “Fruit Salad” energizer. To each of the participants, assign a name - go around the circle and name each person in turn as banana, cherries, pineapple, or apple. Then put the chairs in a circle and ask participants to take a seat. Chairs should face the centre and the number of chairs should be 1 less than participants. One person who doesn’t have a seat will go to the middle. Then tell the person in the middle that she/he has to announce a fruit, and all the people who were assigned that fruit have to stand up and switch chairs. The person that is left standing must then announce a new fruit. At any time, a person in the middle can say “Fruit Salad,” and it will force everyone to switch chairs. Continue this process until you feel that energy levels have increased and the participants are ready for a new task.
2. Ask the participant to group themselves into teams according to the fruit they have and share the flipchart with them.
3. Then ask the participants to write down a few answers/ideas for a particular question on a given piece of paper.
4. Each piece of paper is then passed on to the next team, who reads it and adds their own ideas to the page. This process is repeated until everyone has had a chance to add to each original piece of paper.
5. When the time is over gather the papers and ask the teams to present all the ideas. Give them time for discussion.
6. Finish the exercise with questions for reflection:
- Which of the four questions are critically important in the creation of a youth centre program?
- What do you think is the key to a successful youth centre program?
- Did you have different approaches when you discussed possible ideas/answers?