The Contact Stage
In this stage we aim at
contacting, making friends, and arousing the interest of the young people that we hope might join the new group. We want to discover
young people who will be the leaders of the future. We want to
invite them to a introductory meeting where they can learn more about YPD and decide if they would like to become active members of the
movement.
As we prepare we remember
Cardijn's challenging words
“We must have faith in
the value of the poor, in the capacity of every young worker to
accept responsibility and take effective action. I dare to demand
from you this unconditional faith.”
Method
for the contact stage
1.
Finalising a list of names
Probably (after all the
work done in the Study Stage') you now have quite a list of young people or groupings of young people. For example you may have found
out that many young workers are working in the rubber plantations,
that many migrant workers are living in one particular area of the
town and that there are many children working at the local fire
cracker factory You will have to decide on your priorities. Which of
these groupings will you begin with?
It is no easy task to
make these decisions. Some teams will opt to work with the group they
know best or the group that will be easiest to organise. Some teams
will try to mix too many groups of young people in one group. While
there is no right answer to such problems, it is important that the
team face them and make a clear decision.
2.
Preparing for contact work
The only successful
method of contacting young people is by visiting them and
talking to them. Posters in the neighbourhood centre, or notices in churches or community centres will inform people that a group is about to
start. However if we want members, we must go out and knock on doors
If we prepare well we will probably find that it is a very fulfilling
work.
How do you prepare? Here are three pointers:
To
make a friend. You have not come to sell anything but rather to ask
questions and listen.
To
inform them that a YPD team is going to be started.
To
tell them a little about the YPD if they are interested.
To
motivate them to come along to the introductory meeting.
Thirdly, YPD leaders
preparing for contact work often do a role play. Two take the part
of the visitors, and one, the part of the person being visited. They
try to act out what might happen. It is fun and a good means of
preparing for this work. Why not give it a try?
3.
Start contacting
The contact visit should
not be long and especially our explanations should not be long. We
are only asking people to come and have a look. If they like what
they see we hope they will return. We are not asking them to agree to
join for life but just to come to the introductory meeting and see if
they would be interested to come again.
The contact stage should
not continue for an extended time. If the preparation is well done,
the contacts will probably be able to be made in a couple of weeks at
the maximum. Most young people like to see action As soon as there
are enough interested to come along, organise the Introductory
Meeting.
4.
The introductory meeting
The aim of the
introductory meeting is to give interested young people a chance to
see what YPD is like before they agree to join. Young people
want to find out who else is interested enough to come and what they
are like. They would like to hear in a group what YPD is all
about and to see what others think about this. In a word they want to
evaluate whether it is a good thing to join or not.
The agenda should be
friendly and informative, giving people a chance to meet and share
with the others who have come along. It is not possible to present YPD very adequately at such a meeting and it is better not to try.
Instead some key ideas should be presented giving emphasis to making
people welcome and respected.
An
example of an agenda that has been used for the introductory meeting.
1. Welcome everybody. Get
them to introduce themselves one by one, saying where they live, went
to school and what they are doing now.
2. Conclude this section
with a comment: What we do during our ordinary day, what happens
there, and the relationship we have with the people there is very
important to ourselves but we often think it would not be interesting
to others. In YPD we spend a lot of time discussing what we do in
our ordinary life because we recognise that it is an area of great
importance to us personally, as well as the place that we are
called to serve our God and our community.
3. Get people to split up
into pairs with someone they don't know well and to tell one another
about their families - how many in the family, how old they are, what
they do etc.
4. Conclude this section
with another comment. Our families are very important to us and we to
them, but we often drift along without recognising our need to be
actively involved there. This is also an area of importance in YPD.
5. One of the leaders
gives a talk on what YPD has meant to them in their own life.
6. The other leader tells
how YPD would be organised in this group - the use of the program
- the need to get two of those present to prepare and lead the first
meeting on the following week.
7. Find out who of those
present would be prepared to come back next week and try the YPD.
Organise for two of them to lead that meeting and arrange a time to
prepare the meeting with them.
8.
Drinks/Snack
