ON GOING TO THE GO PROJECT

Some of our best learning experiences occur outside school. The GO Project offered by the United Church is an urban immersion experience for young people Grade 9 to age 18. It is worthwhile, in my opinion, to determine what the project aims to achieve.

The GO Project appears to me to be a finishing school for those who work from a church base to be activists in local communities. It also intends to be a youth experience that is consistent with the values and manner of proceeding generally accepted and promoted by the United Church. The participants should be ready to include all, to accept difference and to thrive in a "questioning atmosphere."

The youth should anticipate learning from and receiving from the people they meet in their various sites. As they help in a food bank, a clothing outlet, a child care centre, a young person drop-in centre, they will be thinking of similar initiatives for the communities they come from. The purpose is "to provide youth and their leaders with the ability to discern the actual needs of those in their home communities." This occurs through a "ministry of presence" and in sites that are "sustainable" in the sense that they continue on after the youth participate in their work.

A statement of the Mission of the GO Project with an emphasis on community concludes: "GO - be a positive presence in the community around you GO - Enrich the lives of youth by taking a leadership role within your church GO - Serve God by discerning how to serve your community"

Most happily, I will be with the young people as an adult leader/participant.