The Rotary Balita no. 781 (September 29, 1955)

Do you remember the legend about the traveler who passed by a busy worker in stone and asked him what he was doing?

He answered, "I am cutting stone." The wayfarer moved on, and repeated the question to the next workman.

"I am earning a living," was the reply. As he came to a third laborer, he asked the question again. The worker looked up. "I am helping build a cathedral," he said...
Service to youth presents a serious challenge. What can we do that is more important to ourselves and the future than to assist and guide our young people — helping to create, through the youth of our own community, a cleaner, healthier, and more intelligent manhood and womanhood of the future? Tomorrow's world depends on the moral and physical standards of the young people of today.
It has been said that the principles and ideals learned and practiced in childhood and youth never wholly leave us, but remain and influence our behaviour and reactions all of our lives.

Building of Character and Citizenship

Youth today has greater freedom, exercises greater power, speaks more frankly, and has more opportunities for both good and evil, than it has ever had. How important it is that these great possibilities for good be realized and developed!

Service to youth is one of the most interesting and worthwhile fields of activity that can be undertaken by Rotary clubs and Rotarians. The results are of inestimable value. Such service is not merely the selection and operation of a project, or the formulation of a program for youth — it is the building of character and citizenship in the individual boy and girl through carefully selected and directed activities.

Service to Youth World Wide

It is doubtful if there is any Rotary Club anywhere in the world that has not at some time or other engaged in some form of service to youth. Many clubs have made service to youth their principal program of activity. Others have been content to let youth projects, along with other activities, have a place in a general program of community service.

There are youth problems that are sometimes peculiar to different communities and even different countries. In some countries, the problems of youth are handled by other than lay organizations.
In the preparation of this pamphlet, an endeavor has been made to make it applicable to all parts of the Rotary world. If activities are described which are not practical in some countries, it should be kept in mind that they may be especially important in other areas, and are included for this reason.

Objectives of Service to Youth

Approved by the Board of Directors of Rotary International as guides for the Youth Committee of Rotary International and as suggestions for Rotary clubs, these objectives have helped us to "set our sights" on local conditions:

1. The acquisition of a practical knowledge and understanding of urban and rural conditions and factors affecting youth in the process of their development to maturity.
2. The recognition of the importance to youth of (a) physical health, (b) well-rounded education, (c) cultivation of spiritual qualities, (d) wise choice of vocation, and (e) thorough vocational preparation.
3. The encouragement of activities pertaining to youth on the part of Rotary clubs and individual Rotarians, for which they are best qualified, and through which they can render the greatest service.
4. The stimulation of good citizenship in youth through a recognition of the responsibilities owed by the individual to the community by which alone the privileges of membership in it can be preserved.
5. The development in the minds of youth of a better understanding of world affairs, and the promotion of right attitudes toward the peoples of other countries as well as their own.
6. The promotion of ways and means of (a) effecting personal contacts of Rotarians with youth, and (b) effecting direct and indirect contact between the youth of different countries.

What are some of the things that are being done to realize these objectives? Well, let us see...

Every Hour of Every Day

...Rotary Clubs engage in some form of youth project

Rotary activities in service to youth are being carried on every hour of every day throughout the world. Clubs both large and small have developed worthwhile, effective projects. Some are one-time plans, but most are long-term, integral parts of the club's regular program. Let's call the roll of a few of the many activities. All are programs dealing with youth, and a large proportion include girls as well as boys —
• Occupational information
• Summer camps High-school guests
• Teenage clubs and youth centers
• Hobby clubs and hobby shows
• Citizenship training
• Athletic teams and leagues Physical fitness programs
• Assistance to existing organizations
• Recreation programs
• Parents' forums
• Student loan funds and scholarships Essay and public-speaking contests
• Rural youth projects
• Boys' clubs
• Sponsorship

There are many other equally important and worthwhile activities. There are many variations of the activities listed here. There are many degrees of participation. Successful projects, however, require careful planning before operation. Some of the essentials of a practical, general plan for Rotary service to youth are discussed in the following text...

Essentials of Successful Planning

1. Appoint a Youth Committee of three, five, or more members, led by a chairman who has a keen, sympathetic understanding of the problems of youth, who is deeply interested in the welfare of young people, and who has those qualities of leadership which will assure a working committee.
2. Secure the facts about youth in the community, their interests and needs, their recreational opportunities, the agencies and facilities serving them, and keep this information up to date.
3. Cooperate with and work through existing organizations wherever possible, supporting, strengthening, and utilizing their programs wherever such activities fulfill the community's needs.
4. Plan and develop new activities when they are needed, limiting projects to those activities the club can do best and with the greatest effectiveness, without duplicating the work of other agencies or overlapping into their fields of service.
5. Report to the club frequently through interesting programs and reports. Remember it is the club that is engaged in service to youth. The youth committee is the agency through which the club works. It will be discovered that there are many who are not members of the youth committee who can give effective service and whose energy and inspiration in this field will help in the achievement of a well-rounded program.

What Can We Do?

First, Secure the Facts!

Effective service to youth requires an understanding of community conditions affecting boys and girls. The youth committee of the club should have all the facts concerning youth in the community. This information should cover statistics, educational facilities, occupations, health, recreation, delinquency, and data as to the effectiveness of youth-serving agencies.

The information can be secured through group conferences, contacts with youth, school, municipal, church, and police agencies, and may be supplemented by a questionnaire distributed to high-school and grammar-school students, requesting certain information, asking for their viewpoints, and even inviting suggestions as to remedial measures.

When this information has been analyzed, the youth committee is ready to ask some very important questions relating to its selection of youth activities... for instance... What can we do to assist youth-serving agencies in their work?

Rotary's community service policy, summarized, suggests this procedure:

After the needs of the community have been determined, a Rotary club should ascertain what existing agency or agencies are qualified to carry on this work in the community. If one is found, the club should confer with it and determine how the Rotary club can cooperate with it and strengthen the work of the agency and elicit for it the united support of the community. If no suitable agency exists, the Rotary club may find it advisable to create a new agency, or otherwise initiate a community venture. It is obvious that community cooperation can better be secured if credit or publicity for the Rotary club is relegated to the background.

There are many capable organizations working earnestly for the welfare of boys and girls, and contact with these agencies should be established before any new program is undertaken, in order to insure united effort and to avoid any duplication of activity. In many instances these agencies need only the support and cooperation of the community to serve adequately the needs of youth in their particular fields. In other cases, existing facilities need only to be expanded and properly utilized. through contact with these organizations the Rotary club can learn of many underprivileged groups which need assistance. The youth committee can cooperate with these groups.

By Giving Active Support

Many agencies, operating through locally organized units, need only the backing of an interested group to put over a more comprehensive and successful program. Assistance to extension committees, and sponsorship of individual units of such organizations, utilizing the program and facilities already in existence, is a satisfactory and rewarding form of service to youth.

By Providing Leadership

Volunteer leaders are the backbone of youth activities — but there are not enough of them. Teenage clubs, boys' clubs, rural groups, units of organized youth groups, are always in need of adequate adult supervision, and can use to great advantage the kind of assistance that can be given by individual members of the Rotary club. Such leadership is not necessarily limited to active participation. Rotarians everywhere serve on governing boards, as officers, heads of drives, and in similar capacities for youth groups of every kind.

By Furnishing Financial Assistance

Many excellent youth organizations are hampered by a lack of funds or equipment, or both. Many Rotary clubs find a satisfying service in contributing to the funds of worthy youth groups, in purchasing equipment, in serving individually or as a club in fund raising campaigns. Many clubs, without officially sponsoring any organization, adopt a particular group, or a particular phase of an agency's work, and help finance it or provide equipment. Assistance to camps and camping projects in the form of cash, gifts, or equipment, or scholarships to camp for underprivileged boys and girls are examples of this type of support.

Scope of Rotary Service to Youth

Rotary clubs themselves have defined the scope of Rotary's efforts in community service in this manner —

Accordingly, corporate action by Rotary clubs is not prohibited; but under the safeguards provided herein and for the purpose of creating esprit de corps in the club itself, it is desirable that every Rotary club have some community service activity requiring the collective cooperation of all its members, in addition to its program for the stimulation of the club members to individual service within the community.

There are many youth activities which come under this definition — activities which require the cooperation of the club as a unit — which, in their service to boys and girls, bring lasting good to the individual and to the community served by these programs. They can be developed, in greater or less degree, by any Rotary club, no matter what its size or financial position, according to the needs of the community. Some of these activities are...

• Athletics and Physical Fitness
• Citizenship
• Service to Youth Through the Schools
• Handicapped Youth
• Occupational Information
• Personal Sponsorship
• Recreation
• Rural Youth

Now, let's look at some of these activities more closely, and we shall discover that it is not at all difficult to so plan our work and work our plan that any one of them could become a successful project of our Rotary club. They are by no means the only activities, nor are they all the major activities, but they are outstanding activities which can be initiated and sponsored successfully by almost any Rotary club. They are activities which will meet specific needs of boys and girls in nearly every community. Perhaps one — or more — is exactly the opportunity your Rotary club is looking for.