The Zone 3 Youth Team was created about 6 years ago, when the role of Zone 3 Youth Coordinator was created. Since then the coordinator's main role has been to bring all the national youth coordinators of Zone 3 and any other very active people together for weekend long meetings. The most recent one took place at Loudwater Farm (outside London, England). Present were Louise Harrington and Elias Bate the Subud Britain Youth coordinators. Celia Seco and Miguel Pinto the Portuguese Youth Coordinators. Dalihani Drezda the new youth coordinator from France, Agata Breamer Youth Coordinator of Spain. Sara a friend of Celia's from Portugal and myself Rhyana Blakeley, Co-coordinator Subud Youth Association International (SYAI).

We all met up on the Friday night at Louise’s house as she had kindly cooked us all dinner. Here we were a group of people who had all arrived with their own baggage from their roles and their life, some of us knew each other well and we had been working together for a while now, others did not knew each other. All those little nervous tensions and stresses were apparent.

The next morning we all met at the farm for Latihan and testing. It has always been one of the main objectives of the team has been to try and work together in harmony. We always start with the tests "what quality does each person bring to the role", and "how can each of us best support them". It is amazing how these two questions can help us all get to knew each other, or get back in touch with each other. So miraculously we sprang out of the Latihan hall to share our receiving with the men, all our baggage left behind. And any one seeing us for the first time would have thought that we had all known each other for years. After lunch we settled down to the meeting. Firstly there was a presentation from each country.

Britain

Britain has an already thriving youth culture, with regular gatherings and parties. The main focus now is on bringing this energy together in the form of activities and enterprises. Including fundraising parties, such as the New Year's party which raised money for the Pakistan earthquake appeal. A recent idea has been to run a club night at the Amadeus centre (a subud house and enterprise in Central London of which Elias Bate is also the Manager) to raise money for the youth budget and for Susila Dharma. And Subud Radio, which although is designed for all Subud members was initially started by the Youth.

Also in Britain every year there is a weeklong congress where each wing is in charge of creating a schedule. So they have to work on the youth schedule, a big job. Which will include workshops such as film making, and break dancing? Outings to places of interest in the local area and space for meetings and focusing on youth related issues, (past ones have included...sex drugs and rock and roll, every thing you ever wanted to knew about subud but were afraid to ask, and mentorship)of course all these activities are open to all ages but they just make sure that there are things that will appeal to the teenagers and young adults (Britain also has a children's coordinator who creates the children's schedule for the National Congress each year). Also for National Congress Youth are hoping to have a enterprise in the form of a juice bar, and are pushing to help create a night time place where everyone can socialise together in the dark hours.

France

France has not had a youth coordinator up until the last few months, and Dhaliani a mother of teenage children is having to start the impossible situation of creating a youth culture (by which I mean youth weekends parties and camps) in a country that has never had one.  Also in a country where young members consisted of a few newly opened teenagers and a few disinterested late twenty somethings.

Portugal

Portugal has also got a small but active youth culture.  After a recent youth camp in the subud owned property Bucelas (a few miles from Lisbon) the younger members started going up to Bucelas every weekend and working on the property. They focused on doing up the Albergue a guest chalet over looking a bull ring, with 6 small rooms and living area. They have now been offered the Albergue for the youth but they have to find the money themselves to do it up and there is a lot of work that needs to be done as the showers and toilets are in need of renovation. The youth has also been the main drive behind monthly group dinners, monthly joint wing meetings, culminating in a joint wings party at Bucelas, to which only the youth turned up. But the energy of the youth is dissipating as they were growing frustrated by the older members no longer turning up to things. There was talk of creating another camp in Bucelas to restart this energy but neither Celia or Miguel felt they wanted to organise it.

Spain

Again here is a large country with no youth culture and approximately five or six younger members opened but scattered about the country. The situation has been this way for several years now and again a camp is felt to be a good idea, possibly a joint one with Portugal.

Overall the same things kept coming up for all of us. The fact that youth are sometimes not taken seriously or seen as in someway separating themselves. For example Louise had pre booked the Farm months before but they had double booked, and as we were "Youth" we had been told that we must sleep on mattresses in the Latihan hall and at the last minute told we could not use the Kitchen.

We feel that our focus is not about dividing off from the older people but just creating activities to help younger people to subud. For example many subud children especially connect subud simply with Latihan and meetings where people talk for hours. For us it is not only this but when a group of people of many different ages and cultures come together and talk dance and get to knew each other. And sadly much of the fighting that can exist in more secular groups can also put younger members off. Added to this coming into subud can often be a confusing time as it can clash with the life style of many young people as well as just being a sometimes difficult rd to follow, we just want to help create an environment where people realise that they are not alone in feeling this way and that they are being taken into consideration. It would be great if every country made their national congress a great place for families to come together and socialise, but as well as encouraging that we felt that we could create youth orientated camps. Not just youth camps but family camps (such as the snow camp) and sports, arts and enterprise focusing camps with particular relevance to younger people. But it was also felt that in some countries they would need to have youth from other places to have enough people there.

Zone 3 Youth Team

It was generally felt that these meetings were beneficial in helping each individual coordinator continue with their work feeling supported and being able to share ideas. It was also felt that we want to show that we are serious by creating business plans budgets and trying to create our own budgets.

We also need to find a Zone 3 Youth Coordinator as Louise has been covering the role kindly since world congress.

Now we had all moaned about the farm being double booked though in the end we could use the kitchen, but in the end it really turned out to be a gift. As it was double booked by the spirit of enterprise team who invited us to have a meeting with them. We all had to sit in a circle and be quite, and really try to feel when we should talk. At first we all looked at each other across the room, but we gave it a try, and it really was amazing. In an hour all we had been talking about that afternoon formed together in a "space" in the centre of the room. We decided to make the main focus of the youth team to create well organised youth orientated camps throughout zone three. Seeing as Bucelas was there and ready it felt right to do the first one there, and then next year organise camps in Spain and France We wanted to worked more as a team so no one person felt overwhelmed, and also create our own budgets. We were all impressed by this form of holding a meeting and hope to use such techniques employed in the future. The next day we meet for Latihan. To test around organising the youth camp in Portugal. We also tested the qualities of other camps happening in the next six months as we feel they deserve equal support, and about the need and the role of the Zone 3 Youth Coordinator. Then we meet with Hussian Dickie (who was a part of the S.O.E group, and for those who do not knew the main coordinator of the last world congress). He showed us how the create a camp, looking at team building, allocating roles. Creating a budget, well basically everything. And has very kindly agreed to help support us, so we feel that we have really solid support. The group then offered to be our "Bank" in that they would help cover our pre costs, and we would hopefully pay them back with 5% after we had made profit. They offered this as they had been impressed by us in the meeting the night before, and felt that we were working to the same principles that they are working too. We were speechless and explained that after all we had said about being taken seriously, about trying to show that we were not about throwing parties and getting drunk but about trying to introduce young people to subud, trying to bring energy back to properties, groups and countries were things where starting to go stagnant, and trying to work harmoniously and efficiently together, they had heard us. Ultimately we asked for less money then they initially offered for the Bucelas camp, as we felt we wanted to work for their trust. But we were all very moved and hope that we will be working with them for a long time.

Results

So we left after two days a much stronger and happier group. Celia after saying that she did not want to organise the camp, is now the main coordinator of a youth camp in Bucelas from the 10th to the 20th August, with our full support. She has a business plan from Hussain, has already created a team and a budget and we have agreed to all do a Latihan together once a month to support her and her team. We also did some Latihan and testing to give her some support before she left. Agata, is returning to to look for a location for a camp in Spain We are hoping to test in a new zone three youth coordinator at the zone three meeting in May, ironically at Bucelas.

Its main responsibilities include:

Administratively is about organising two meetings a year, ideally in countries that perhaps need a little extra support and energy.

Looking out for youth coordinators in the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Italy. Giving support to the present youth coordinators in their very differing roles.

Taking charge of any budget used primarily for travel to meetings. 

Working as part of the international youth team along with myself and Hamilton.

But we also felt that the role carries with it a large spiritual responsibility that can often be difficult at the meetings especially. We felt both through our own needs but also through testing that the role was extremely important for the youth in zone three and possible should be both taken by both a man and a woman so that there was a balance of the sexes. And Dalihani has agreed to test for the role at the next full Zone 3 meeting, after a pre test showed she had the right qualities.

But that does not mean that she should be the only person testing for the role so if anyone is interested, please get in touch rhyanablakeley@yahoo.co.uk

We also tested the qualities of all the camps happening:

In July the Yes Quest in La Source. The Yes Quest is an intensive workshop based camp to help young people look into themselves and find a focus. Using both physical and therapy based work. I have been following their work for several years and am extremely impressed by what they offer. We felt the importance of the Yes Quest for the youth was huge and long lasting, when we All tested it.

30th July to the 9th August Bangalore World Subud Council meeting.

10th-20th of August youth camp in Bucelas. A small quiet chance to escape from the hustle and bustle of city life and live as a community in this quite and very special place.

Gathering in the Crimea in stunning Ukraine, with landscapes that are out of this world. A chance to meet your brothers and sister from this part of the world as they have a harder time travelling. The British National Congress a large and well established gathering, Britain has over 100 youth who all love to meet up at congresses and many workshops and talks and fun evenings of dancing are planned.