Everything Under The Sun: One Organization Shares Training And Experience With Another

Friday, August 19, 2016

One Organization Shares Training And Experience With Another

One of the types of training that is offered by MBA.

There are a number of organizations that work with youth in urban areas. Sometimes the focus is on the at-risk youth, who are so attracted to the lure of the streets. When two organizations work together, they can take advantage of the strengths of both organizations.

That happened in West Contra Costa County, California, when the MIND BODY AWARENESS PROJECT (MBA) of Oakland got together with URBAN TILTH, which is focused in Richmond. MBA works with at-risk youth and engages them in mindfulness and life skills training, while Urban Tilth works with people of various age groups and teaches youth about developing a sustainable, healthy food system.

The two groups got together on June 28th, for their fifth annual session. MBA has provided members of Urban Tilth with daylong mindfulness training during these sessions. There were 50 attendees, comprised of both youth and staff members. MBA Program Director Micah Anderson and Instructor Kamal Ahmed led the training, which utilized didactic exercises on stress management and impulse control, experiential meditation, and empathy-building exercises. Through this training, participants learned about the benefits of mindfulness and how to respond to stress and trauma.

After a short meditation, the group engaged in games and exercises that helped to increase the bond between the youth and staff members. They also learned about building their empathetic skills with each other. Participants were challenged to take the risk to share with each other in less familiar ways. It was generally felt that, by the end of the session, both youth and staff had improved their connection with each other.

Some of the youth who benefit from Urban Tilth.

Micah Anderson shared, "I was impressed by the youth's level of courage to share intimately with each other." Part of the mission of Urban Tilth is training local residents to work with schools, so in being able to participate in this type of training and to see the training's application in the work, gives those resident trainees the confidence to work with, and provide guidance to, these youth in the school system and other community organizations. It's definitely a sharing of talents and strengths.