reflections from Unicamp

On the evening of September 17th the participants of the 3rd Annual Young Adult Weekend at Unicamp sat down to have dinner, and with that meal began a relaxing, intimate weekend full of great food and conversation, with lots of connections made and lots of enjoyment had by all at the beauty of the Unicamp property.  We were lucky enough to have folks from all over southern and eastern Ontario, plus several YAs who came from Montreal via Toronto.  Our group also had a broad mix of ages (including a few Bridgers which was wonderful), and well as backgrounds. There was close to a fifty fifty split between those who grew up UU and those who found us as YAs, so also made for some interesting sharing and networking.  On the Saturday night of the weekend I lead a session asking 'where' do YAs see themselves within our broader Unitarian Universalist movement in Canada.   Please check out the responses I recorded, below.

The YA Weekend at Unicamp is something that evolved organically, I believe, beginning with a few YAs who had a strong connection to the camp from being on staff, having an idea for a gathering.  For those who are unfamiliar, Unicamp is a Unitarian family and summer camp located in the Niagara escarpment region, a few hours away from Toronto.  It is a well loved summer location by many UUs young and young at heart, from all over Ontario.  The event really began because a few YAs decided it would be fun to have an event at Unicamp and they just made it happen.   I'm fairly certain no one though it would become an annual event, let alone one that would make it to 3rd Annual!  I say all this because I hope this story can be a source of encouragement for YAs in other regions who might be feeling really disconnected.  If you have ideas and a small critical mass of folks that you think would be interested in or benefit from an event like this, please contact me.  I think there's a lot of potential for a YA weekends to happen all over our country.   

Young Adult Reflections

from the 3^rd Annual Young Adult Weekend at Unicamp, Saturday September 18^th, 2010

Prepared by: Ariel Hunt-Brondwin, CUC  Youth and Young Adult programmer

On Saturday evening the group of 20 or so of us gathered after dinner to brainstorm together about our thoughts on our place as YAs individually and collectively within the Canadian UU Movement.  To aid in this brainstorm, I facilitated the discussion by asking three broad questions, taking comments and recording the responses.

Here are the questions asked, along with the responses recorded.

1) What feeds your soul? (in the context of UU community)

- soul food

- the strong sense of community

- that there’s no need to put on a façade

- finding identity in this community

- having a diversity of viewpoints within this community

- our shared values and frustrations, being able to acknowledge mutual disappointments over social justice actions

- the intelligence in sermons and our writings

- the people I meet who encourage me to ‘live better’

- the constant encouragement that is felt to grow beyond comfort zones

- music

- having more intimacy in worship and have worship on a smaller scale

- having social opportunities beyond Sunday mornings

- having profound moments, which allow for greater connections to be made

- that I’m allowed to disagree and still be welcome

- when spirituality is explicitly acknowledged; we are a faith community

- hearing about other people’s spiritual journeys

- feeling like I’ve found a family in my congregation

2) How is Young Adult community important to your spirituality?

- it’s important to have peers who share these values [UU values]

- it’s lots of fun

- being social keeps me grounded

- [YA community] keeps you from getting ‘lost’ in the larger community; we are a community within a larger one

- we can have more intimate relationship than with non-UU YAs

- it keeps me in this denomination

- there’s more openness, trust and ease of interaction

- we have more shared norms, especially around relationships

- it eases the loss of youth group/the loss that comes with bridging out

- it provides a non-work, non-school social outlet

- there’s a sense of equality; not a sense of control or preserving ‘our’ system

- I can be affirmed as a person, an individual and not as a token of my age group

- I’m not seen as an ‘energy resource’

3)What can the CUC do? (as a board or staff)

- put YA stories in the CanU

- give more acknowledgement of non-humanist spiritualities

- have more info and give more support to youth about the YA experience; but also provide this to older UUs as well

- help explain the overlap between youth and YAs, have more recognition of “bridgers” [those who are 18-20yrs old who are both Youth and YAs]

- have a resource kit for YA and YA allies to help support (or start-up) YA groups in congregations

- support a YA scrapbook or newsletter

- provide more info about social justice opportunities

- helps us network and share info between congregations

- provide us with more contemporary worship models/styles; ones that focus on intimacy and community

- give more info to congregations on what YAs want and need; it’s hard for us to always ask, to have our needs met

- help us get together; transportation matters and is a bigger barrier to our participation than one might think

- recognize that congregations do not need to be the hub of our spirituality

- ask us what are our spiritual beliefs

- recognize that we have needs for different spiritual sources; helps us to reclaim rejected sources

- helps us/provide us with resources to explore Christianity and Catholicism [as people coming without/much less hurt or ‘baggage’ from these traditions] in the context of our UU identity

- let go of assumptions about what Unitarian Universalism is and can be 

 

thanks for reading.

namaste,

a