Young People in Transition Away from Their Home Communities
As part of our efforts to make RC more accessible to young people, we are helping young people find an ally who can buddy with them through times of transition away from their home RC Community. We are also tracking the allies so that we can keep supporting them.
Our goal is to keep in contact with young people who leave their local RC Communities for college, jobs, life adventures, and so on, and to have at least one ally for each young person who wants one.
The ally’s job is to be the young person’s Co-Counselor and to take initiative to maintain contact. Because young people’s oppression is so hard, the ally is the one who’s in charge of all the initiating and reaching out.
The ally stays in contact with the young person on a weekly basis for at least a year—by phone, Zoom, and/or e-mail and perhaps by visiting. A primary role of the ally is to help the young person think about connecting with and getting integrated into the nearest RC Community, or at least staying in contact with RCers, while they are away.
Conference calls, led by Jenny Sazama (International Liberation Reference Person for Allies to Young People), are held every six months. Allies should do their best to attend—for support, connection, and referencing.
This project has gone best when young people choose an ally they already know. If you are a young person who would like support in choosing an ally and getting them involved in the project, please reach out to me, Hannah Firestone, the project’s organizer, at hsagefirestone@gmail.com or to Jenny Sazama, at jenny.yob@gmail.com. Please put “Allies to Young People in Transition” in the e-mail subject line.
If you are already an ally to a young person in transition away from home, please also reach out to Jenny or me.
And please let us know if you need any more information.
Thank you for your help! I am glad to be in touch with you.
Brooklyn, New York, USA
(Present Time 208, July 2022)