Strong, young leaders with hope and positive vision are needed today.

Due to the vast and rapid distribution of information through new media, especially the internet, youth today are exposed to the realities and problems of their world in ways that no generation before them ever has. Traditional education has kept up with providing access to the vast stores of information available, but it has not kept up with young people’s urgent need for the tools and the clear direction to take up the vitalizing work of creating a just and sustainable world.

At Finding the Good, we strive to help develop competent, confident, and knowledgeable youth leaders who can bring messages of hope, possibility, and peace to others. This leadership training occurs naturally throughout the semester as the students are called upon to step up, challenge themselves and each other, and grow as individuals for a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons may include:

1. ✦    Facilitating ropes course days for visiting groups
   

2. ✦    Consulting with Finding the Good peers about collective semester experiences
   

3. ✦Collaborating with staff and interns to develop research projects
   

4. ✦    Guiding wilderness adventures for younger children
   

5. ✦    Presenting research in public forums
   

6. ✦    Interviewing adults in professional roles
   

7. ✦    Building bridges between various community organizations
   

8. ✦Offering insights about ways to improve the Finding the Good program (yes, we     openly seek advice from our highly knowledgeable student participants!)
   

Once students complete research on a given model or practice is, it is documented and entered into the Finding the Good media library of sustainable solutions. This database of projects is available to school classes, community groups, and members of the public - effectively, sharing the good. As Zenobia Barlow and Michael K. Stone write in the introduction of Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World, “We have discovered that successful programs don’t necessarily replicate, but rather migrate, as educators, parents and community activists are inspired by them to seek solutions that solve for pattern in their own situations.” Experience sharing is a vital component of Finding the Good and at the root of what we’re all about.

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➜ Community & Service

➜ Connection to Nature

➜ Transdisciplinary Learning

➜ Youth in Action: Documentary Media Making & Presenting

    “A leader is a dealer in hope.”

- Napolean Bonaparte