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Smalltown Idaho teens build leadership
by Marlene Fritz
What do YOU do when there’s nothing to do in Notus?
“I ride my bike or go for a walk,” an eighth-grader responded to this written poll of Notus middle and high school students. “I ride my skateboard. I wish there was a skate park. I wish there was a pool.”
The answer was typical—and it’s the reason why Notus
teens focused on expanding out-of-school opportunities at a forum they sponsored
for their small Canyon County community on a Saturday evening in September 2006.
Teens in four other rural Idaho communities—Cascade, Salmon, Soda Springs, and Star—are likely to identify entirely different social, cultural, economic, or environmental issues to tackle at their forums, but the process they’ll follow will be much the same.
Linda Webb, UI Extension 4-H/youth specialist, is coordinating Idaho’s participation in 4-H’s national “Engaging Youth, Serving Community” initiative because she wants adults to see that teens can play meaningful leadership roles at the community level. In each of 15 states, five towns get up to $2,500 each to build their leadership capacity by helping teens develop—and demonstrate—leadership skills. Teamed with a few adults, the teens select an issue of broad concern and sponsor a forum to address it.
4-H grants allow teens to learn by leading
4-H’s learn-by-doing emphasis applies to community leadership just as it does to other life skills, Webb says. The initiative’s aim isn’t just to build tomorrow’s leaders but today’s, and its beneficiaries aren’t just teens but the small rural communities in which they live. “There are a lot of leadership roles that go unfilled because we can’t find adult volunteers,” Webb says. “I believe our young people have the interest, the knowledge, the enthusiasm, and the energy to take on leadership roles and really make a difference in their communities.”
“The sky’s the limit for them,” agrees 4-H office manager Nancy Chaffin in Salmon. “They are not bound by a lot of past failures, so they feel quite positive. They’re eager to participate and try new things.”
Treasure Valley UI Extension Educators Brian Luckey and Barbara Abo helped gently guide the Notus team of 11 teens and six adults through the issue-identification and forum-organization process. Co-chair Nicole Harding, a Notus High School sophomore, says she “really honors” the feeling that adults respect her opinion. “Knowing that you actually count in the eyes of an older person makes you feel really good and be more involved,” she says.
Harding hopes the outcome of her efforts will soon be a wider range of positive out-of-school activities for Notus youth. “If what we do changes one kid’s life, I would be extremely happy.”
What they did in Notus was decide to form a youth-action coalition that will work closely with the community’s adults to weigh such alternatives as after-school, summer-school, and Big Brother/Big Sister programs. “It’s nice to see the kids wanting to get involved,” says school board member Gilbert Basaldua, who attended the September forum at the teens’ invitation. “Once we get the word out and get everybody on board, there will be huge interest by the community.”
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