Young Facilitators

I attended the discussion on organising the PJ Children Forum hosted by Community Support Network last Monday night. MBPJ in collaboration with CSN is organising the inaugural PJ Children Forum this coming July 25. The Forum aims to gather different stakeholders and to formulate a Child Friendly City of Petaling Jaya. Prior to the Forum, a Pre-Forum workshop with participation of 250 children aged 8-18 years old will be held. As a preparatory work towards the event, various discussions over the format, objectives, approaches and programmes were held.

While I have anticipated to meet with the usual energetic and enthusiastic Datuk Ghazali, Soony Lim and Khatijah of CSN there to provide guidance for discussion, i was surprised, yet excited to see the presence of many young and committed adults. They are very well articulated with the children issues and pose so many experiences with them on working with children aged 18 years and below. They even counter proposed tentative programme to suit the children. The methods of getting something out from the heart and mind of the children. The approaches of getting children to feel comfortable. The skills of getting children to express their views and transform it into audio visual presentation. While many of us have experience to facilitate discussion over particular issue, many do not have the skills and knowledge to deal with young adults and children. To me, they are the real young facilitators.

I, myself definitely have much to learn.