Ten Approaches to Evolving Young People in Action for Justice

1. Expanding Awareness
   Paradoxically, sometimes the best step in moving from awareness to action is to recognize our need for greater awareness. This may involve learning more about the issues personally or helping members of our local communities become more aware of justice issues.
   
   Gathering
   
   • Study programs
   • Training peer educators
   • Resource speaker
    
   Non-gathering
   • Commitment to closer reading of news
   • Subscription to justice-oriented publication
   • Justice-awareness messages in newsletters, posters
   • T-shirts (graphics from young people)
   • Fact sheets
   • Listing of local resource centers
   • Resource libraries
   • Articles for newspapers
    
   Family/Intergenerational
   • Workshop for adults led by young people
   • Family subscriptions
    
   
2. Creating or Joining a Justice Support Group
   Groups are most often formed around a specific issue or concern. They generally provide
   a setting where members can explore the issue from a variety of perspectives: growing in awareness, sponsoring action and education, and integrating justice into one's own lifestyle.
   
   Gathering
   
   • Meal and study in rotation of homes
   • Prayer services
    
   Non-gathering
   
   • Computer network
   • Membership lists
   • Letter-writing links
   • Prayer concerns from justice group in Sunday worship
    
   Family/Intergenerational
   • Childcare at Justice group meetings
   • Explore "Hospitality" as a family
   • Join/form Parenting for Peace and Justice Network
    
   
3. Advocacy
   Advocacy involves concerted action aimed at addressing and changing the structures that allow injustice to exist and grow. Advocacy assumes a knowledge of how systems work and of how structures impact on people and can be changed.
   
   Gathering
   
   • Orientation before politcal meetings
   • Workshops: "use of purchasing power," letter-writing to legislators
   • Protests/demonstartions/symbolic actions
    
   Non-gathering
   • Written information about systems (government, church, school) and how policy gets made
   • organize a boycott
   • Article in local papers, church and community
   • Letters to the editor
    
   
4. Support for Change Groups
   Groups that are out to change the status quo, that call for a shift in spending priorities or advocate for those treated unjustly, or work to develop programs to give the poor more control over their own lives, offer an effective action approach.
    
   Gathering
   • Organize a fund-raiser
    
   Non-Gathering
   • Write to organizations for information
   • List of advocacy groups (i.e., anti-poverty, handicap access, development agencies)
   • Promotional support of existing groups, information, prayer support, financial support
    
   Family/Intergenerational
   • Proposals for congregational budget
   • Families volunteer 
    
   
5. Lifestyle Change
   Changing our lifestyles as individuals and as community groups offers an opportunity to identify more closely in our daily life with justice issues, and frees up more resources for sharing. Issues such as hunger, homelessness, international debt and concern for the environment lend themselves to a lifestyle change approach.
    
   Gathering
   • Bible study programs
   • Recycling drive
   • Community living project
    
   Non-gathering
   • Fasting
   • Personal stewardship commitment
    
   Family/Intergenerational
   
   • Inventory of family resources, practices
   • Plans to simplify living
   • Develop "rule of life"
    
   
6. Direct Service
   Involvement in programs of direct service helps people to better understand the impact of poverty and injustices on others' lives. They are most effective when preceded by education and training and followed by reflection and evaluation.
    
   Gathering
   
   • Volunteer as a group at a food bank
    
   Non-gathering
   • Refugee host program
   • Food/clothing drive
    
   Family/Intergenerational
   • Family-to-family projects
    
   
7. Immersion Experiences
   An immersion experience is an extended program designed to allow participants to experience day-today life, and understand the history and causes of injustice in another culture or country, as well as those factors which contribute to it. Social analysis is an integral part of immersion experiences.
    
   Gathering
   • Social action program
    
   Non-gathering
   • Reading and preparation
   • Follow-up presentations
    
   Family/Intergenerational
   • Support and re-entry
    
   
8. Career Direction or Tradition
   Helps people to actively explore the connection between their job and their faith.
    
   Gathering
   • Ritual celebration of young people's work
    
   Non-gathering
   
   • Journal relfections
    
   Family/Intergenerational
   • Career mini-course with members of congregation reflecting on their own vocations
   • Career groups explore together how skills can be used in community, or the ethics of the profession
    
9. Mentoring Relationships
   An approach of mentioning relationships works from a consciousness of the skills and abilities of members of the community and attempts to match partners in the congregation.
    
   Gathering
   • Joint meeting of youth and social action group to brainstorm connections
    
   Non-gathering
   • Phone and address lists of people who share interests/issues
    
   Family/Intergenerational
   • Joint justice/service projects between youth and adults
    
10. Growing a Spirituality of Justice
    This approach concerns itself with the interation between prayer, worship and action for justice
     
    Gathering
    • Vigils
    • Homilies
    • Good Friday/inner-city walk
     
    Non-gathering
    • Prayer lists
    • Journaling
    • Artwork, music
     
    Family/Intergeneration
    • Family liturgies
    • Prayers for home use
    • Companion diocese partners
     

To determine which approach would be most helpful to your congregation, reflect on the "Pyramid of Action." The "Pyramid of Action," can be found in Stand for Children: Pray, Speak Out and Act: National Observance of Children's Sabbaths, 1996. The Children's Defense Fund, 25 E Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001; 202/628-8787.