UNPREDICTABLE: if I had to choose one word to describe Community Development Work

So I've changed the group I was meant to be working with and now I'm working with 2 but both of them don't know where they are never mind where they want to be and it's my job to support them to get there but how am I meant to do that...good question...again, that would be my job to support them with that too...

Last Wednesday was the 1st session with the Jobseekers Network, made mostly of people redundant during the recession. It's been tough working with this group as it's more a group of individuals who think independantly  of each other than a group. Tuckman would say they're between forming and storming. While they have various roles and all contribute to the group, through financial donations, bringing cakes, plants, fruit to share or by doing the dishes at the end, and while the group has grown from 1 to 20+ regular attenders since Easter 2009, they lack a structure to make decisions and take actions collectively. The group's growth is down to committed leadership however there is a power imbalance between the founder and her group, to the point where I proposed a very basic provisional programme for 4 weeks and met resistence; the founder felt that what I proposed wasn't relevant because the group already learn and support each other and function well...maybe, she said, it would be better if I do the programme as a one-to-one...yes, I said, the group does help each other get jobs all the time and learns from each other, I completely agree and it should keep doing what works, but this programme uses different methods which will hopefully support the group's development in other ways that will strengthen what you're already doing... I also had to stress that I am not a personal development trainer or life coach.

I totally understand. It's her baby. It's precious to her and she wants to be the martyr, the one driving things forward. And I know that's true but I've been there too, all community developers go through that stage of taking responsibility for a group when the power lies with everyone in that group equally. We fool ourselves into thinking we're all different, with varying possessions of power, but all we have influence and the power is how we use that influence, to the detriment or improved well-being of any group, which is another art altogether.

Anyways, I realised after that conversation, the founder holds all that power and by rejecting an opportunity to work with me, she would be the bar between me and the group. She agreed to let me work with them and afterwards give them the option of whether or not they want to continue so for another 3 weeks. It takes a leap of faith and am immense trust, to let go of a group you have a key role in developing but when you realise the group takes care of itself, you realise you never really had any power afterall and it was the inspiration, vision, or enthusiasm that was needed to light the spark...we all have our roles to play in the universe and we accept it gracefully or reject it with sever consequences to our well-being.

So after some serious persuasion, I managed to get that one day with the Jobseekers network, after serious reservations that my diplomacy might fail on this ocassion and guess what? The session went down a treat! To my surprise they group loved it, one or two said they didn't learn anything but they didn't say it was a load of rubbish.

I started off with a name game ice breaker as not everyone knows each others names and I only met them the previous week. We went round the large circle of 18 of us and I started: My name is Wishful Wing...but we got to the group of 5 men, and three of them passed, throwing the ball to the next person with a look that said 'this is childish' on their faces. At the of the session I asked everyone to do the same but add feedback on the session. Not only did everyone have praise and positive comments, the men who passed the ice breaker were joining in with incredibles and rockets attached to their names! I was so pleased.

What I found interesting is the evaluation questionnaires that only 8 returned. Some of them said the worst bits were thinking of a word to describe themselves (the ice-breaker) and thinking about the past. My goal setting activity asked them to remember times they were happy in their past and some of them found that made them unhappy... the founder seemed to realise the benefits of this method of group development. The session was far from perfect but they didn't notice, I think because this type of work is totally different to anything they've done before. Overall, it was a success and they enjoyed the experience. I'm looking forward to tomorrow now that group have 'bought into' the community development 'thing'. But as always, I hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.

Then on Thursday last week, I did the second session with He Wero's Teen Parents (Mum's) Group. After the Balloon people went down a storm on Monday, I was revved up to go and do a values activity after a quick art & crafty ice-braker but the school holidays began last Friday and all the mum's wre winding down. We only did the ice-breaker, which they loved too, but after predicting that this was the group I'd work most effectively with, and that the Jobseekers' Network would be less successful, in 2 days, my judgement was proved wrong and reality was the total opposite... like I said, totally unpredictable...but I love this work precisely because of it's organic nature: it's unpredictable; you can never predict the future, the weather, reactions and responses, although humans may try until we're blue in the face, nature finds a way and never gives up.

How do you measure Happiness?

Tomorrow I'm facilitating a session with the Job Seekers' Network on Goal Setting that focuses on times of happiness. But how do we measure happiness? No-one can measure its height, its length, its ph balance, its blood pressure. No-one can define its colour, its molecular make-up, even its nature. Yeah, we know endorphins are a hormonal indicator of its presence...but how do we measure it? We can't. It's like love. If I feel happy, then I am happy and no-one else can measure it, besides the size of the smile on my face and the laughter in my eyes but other people show happiness in different ways, so that indicator changes with the person observed. Feelings can't be measured. Feelings move us. And what about animals? I went to Auckland Zoo today and if it wasn't for the fences and human-made structures, you could easily imagine them in the wild. I felt that they looked happy and healthy. Even the tigers. Anyone who saw then would agree.

And I saw a Kiwi bird! It was dark because they're nocturnal so there's only red light and a green line showing the way. It takes a while for the eyes to adjust after being in the ozone free light glare of NZ sunshine (I actually walked into someone!) That made me happy. That and seeing the white rhinos too. Seeing happy animals made me feel happy. Spending time getting to know the teen mums and their babies made me happy too.

A place in the world to belong and a sense of belonging: Balloon People and Cycling in Auckland

Today was a day of firsts. Community Waitakere received a fleet of (two) bikes at the end of last week from the council (proper fnacy ones) and I was the first to go on them! It's not that surprising considering everyone but me depends on a car to get around. I haven't cycled for a few years; some of you have seen my bike chained at the bottom of the stairs covered in dust...Anyways, on the way out to work there was a slight incline so my legs felt like jelly and tomorrow I'm sure I'll be walking like a penguin. Serves me right for not regularly exercising.

So today's been the first day I facilitated a full session and it was with the Teen mum's group at He Wero, part of Henderson High School who received government funding to extend a Teen Parent's Unit onto the main building which is under construction and won't be ready until next winter here (our summer). They were absorbed in the activity of making balloon people of another mum in the group. I have a feeling that they get bored having no programme of  activities that engages them in other ways other than motherhood... in the evaluations they wanted more time creating their balloon people. It went way better than I thought expected. They leanrt more about each other and I learnt loads about them.

A few things that didn't sit right were that the favourite food of a few of them is Burger King and Mac Donalds... they are young and lack life experience living out in the big bad world, but they have tonnes of experience caring for their babies, a different kind of experience but as valuable as every other. I suspect that they enjoyed that it was about them and each other. Being a parent involves sacrifice, a letting go of themselves and their identity to make space for another that's only beginning to take form. But what if those guiding hands haven't yet found their own identity? A place in the world to belong and a sense of belonging too...we never stop learning. The difference is that some of us are more stubborn than others.

Forget the Mountain Trek, it's swings and roundabouts with the wee ones, teenage mums and the never-been-unemployed-before-middle-class, plus a few randoms

Ok, so no photos but there will be... firstly, another reason why I'm not homesick yet is that everyone uses the word 'wee' here, I hear it more here than in England!

So today I spent time with a teen parent group in Henderson, and, as is normal with caring responsibilities, there remains a gender bias and its all young women who bring their wee one's to this group. It was quite funny the first time I met them on Tuesday. Averil , the manager had spoken to me on the phone and of course I have a Scottish accent, so when I turned up on the day she didn't expect a small Chinese looking girl to turn up at the door and said to everyone that it's a 'Scottish' girl turning up so that couldn't be me. Then when I came in and said I am the Scottish girl, they were all in giggles for the rest of time. I forget that my Scottish-Chineseness entertains people until this happens but then I forget allover again until the next time.

Back to the development work: the group have a large empty green lawn in the back where they want to create a food garden and soft play area but one that can be packed up at the end of each day, and when they move to their brand new building (currently being extended onto Henderson High School) in the next 12 months. The handful of mums I met today where very caring of their own babies but of each other, mums and babies. My analysis is that they have learnt to care at a young age, in a mothering role, for these babies and that makes them more considerate of others. I started working at the YMCA one month before I left for NZ where I work with, not teen, but mums younger than me, and I was trying to put my finger on it and now I have. The age, experience and parenthood, of these young mum's who accept the responsibility of giving heir lives to the children with immemse tenderness, makes them naturally more community aware. They are feminists in their experience, their choices and the consequences to care for another life and sacfrifice parts of themselves for their children.

These mums still live with their parents, I gather, and like many others have visions of perfect love, marriage with the fathers of their babies or boyfriends since, chirstmas holidays with the best gifts for their kids, shiny cars, beautiful homes and flawless bodies... they get picked at 10 and dropped off at their parents at 3pm, Mon to Friday, and have a weekly early childhod development session, go to a Barnardos parenting group and chill-out the rest of the time in between changing nappies, feeding, napping themselves, watching their babies nap and doing their schoolwork. I wonder where the fathers are: at work, at school, out the picture, in prison? As a practitioner, I've learnt not to wonder too much about supplementary information unless volunteered. Even then, it's sometimes biased, tainted or falsified. What I'm interested in is where they're at, and where they've been if it's still somewhere they haven't let go of yet...

Oh, and another thing is, people try to guess my age. The teen mums though I was between 17 and 21...thanks for the genes mum and dad.

Right, so yesterday, I also met the Job Seekers Network. A whole other kettle of fish. I went along to 'participate' (read 'observe') at their 2 hour weekly meeting in Te Atatu (an hour on public transport: I wish I tried harder to get my license before I left) where the first half is a blur of information about networking events, announcements and job vacancies, intros of new group members and updates from present, previous members and supporters before the break and a guest speaker. I found it quite difficult to sit through the talk by an NLP life-coach talking about how belief is what enabled her to turnover $20,000 per week at her bar. Hmmm, I think social, economic and political factors had an influence on the success of her business... anways, there were people who lapped it up. Maybe they are desparate for some answers, some a magic formula to depression caused by a loss of job/ confidence/ house/ everything they thought they knew about society/ themsleves/ money/ happiness/ any/ all/ of the above??? Maybe, may be not? But at the end, all I know is that this lifecoach suggests she comes back to do a 2 day version of her course, just for the group, at a special rate... when I'm sitting there, as Community Development worker offering support to the group and asking for nothing but the best of themselves. I have no interest in making money out of other in this job, enough to eat, sleep in a warm place and see the important people in my life is enough. Furthermore, the reason why the members are there is precisely because the cars, the house, the money, the job can't get them happiness...

I found the group individualistic and lacking a critical socialist education perspective that it so evidently is yearning for. As a commonwealth country, built on western ideology, it doesn't surprise me. It's a stark contrast to the Young Mum's group...this is where the real work starts, 3 weeks in to my placement, a few frayed nerves later, and disappointments embraced, I can get my teeth sunk into these two projects that are ready to progress