Resources for Junior Youth Animators

This page contains ideas, reference materials, forms and invitations. 

Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment
Ten different texts are now available for junior youth to study in their groups.

All of the titles are concerned with developing language skills and the power of expression. Some in the first category also address mathematical concepts and social issues, while others seek to prepare young people to approach the investigation of physical, social and spiritual reality in a scientific manner. Though the moral concepts in the materials in the first category are drawn from the Bahá’í teachings, they are not religious in nature, nor do they treat subjects that are specifically Bahá’í. Many kinds of organizations, including academic institutions, will therefore find them useful for their educational programs with junior youth. The current titles in this category are:

  • Breezes of Confirmation
  • Glimmerings of Hope 
  • Thinking About Numbers
  • Walking the Straight Path
  • Learning About Excellence 
  • Observation and Insight
  • The Human Temple
  • Drawing on the Power of the Word

In its own work with young people, the Ruhi Institute includes the items in the second category, which address Bahá’í-related subjects. Among these subjects are those with which adolescents most often struggle, such as, free will and predestination and the complex relationship between will and knowledge. Currently, the following titles are in this category:

  • Spirit of Faith
  • Power of the Holy Spirit

Junior Youth Texts can be purchased from New Zealand B.D.S

All junior youth books cost only $5 each.

To Serve Humanity Films from the the Youth Conference's

    Links to Junior Youth websites


The Junior Youth Empowerment Program  This document looks at

  • Community Betterment through Social Action

    The Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program

    The Service of the “Animator”

    Transformation through Service

    Striving for Excellence

    Achieving Spiritual Empowerment

    The Materials

    Building Capacity through Training

    Training Materials


Resources for Animators of Junior Youth:
Plays:
The links below include one sample scene from each play. A full set of the plays along with resource materials and learning activities for children and youth are available from Aotearoa Institute: Forms for Animators of Junior Youth Groups:
Invitations and Flyers

Social Drama   Story Telling  Sacred Space
Link to Story Telling Techniques 
                                                      STORYTELLING
        “If stories come to you, care for them.  And learn to give them away where they are needed.
                          Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.”

— Barry Lopez, “Arctic Dreams”



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Social Drama   Story Telling  Sacred Space      
Link to Drama / Play Making

Every community play is “written on the wind”.  It adapts itself to the participants — both performers and audience.  Rather than art for art’s sake, it is art for the occasion’s sake.  We must never assume how a play “should” be done.  Every group’s process must be a self-discovery as well as a discovery of how best to meet the needs of its audience.  The process is as sacred as the product that is the performance                              
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