Collaboration and support from the community and institutions in Sherbrooke, Que.
A junior youth group in Sherbrooke, Que.
The Montreal youth conference took place at a key point in the development of our cluster in the Estrie region of Quebec. The reality of our cluster is that in less than a year, the Bahá’í youth population had shrunk from seven to two. This posed a significant challenge to establishing and sustaining a core activity.
However, with the unconditional support of its Spiritual Assembly, the Bahá’í community of Sherbrooke persevered and kept the creation of a junior youth group on its agenda, as the Universal House of Justice has encouraged us to do. Last year, almost all the members of the community studied Book 5 of the Ruhi Institute, in order to be able to speak with ease about the programme to interested parents. This was quite a focussed effort and a sign of the Sherbrooke community’s determination. We were therefore already prepared to welcome the junior youth group that was to form in the next few months. Before the conference, we received help from an assistant to one of our Auxiliary Board members. It was after she suggested initiating a teaching campaign and after the youth conference that everything happened.
This marvellous youth conference gave Dave (my co-animator) and me a chance to reconnect, and further rooted in our hearts the moral responsibility that we have (we who are young and a bit less young) towards the next generation. We realized that if we did not begin a junior youth group in Sherbrooke, nobody else would. The conference also helped us to build bonds of friendship, which in turn enabled us, and still does, to feel like we belong to a coherent whole, a global movement of youth who all have the same goal and desire to contribute to the development of their region, village or neighbourhood. The feeling of widespread support is a key element of the success of any junior youth group, especially during difficult periods. Finally, the conference gave us a chance to consult in a concrete and serious way about our plan of action. This allowed each of us to look at our lives and create the necessary space to form and maintain a junior youth group.
The junior youth group studies together and cleans up their neighbourhood.
The date was set for an intensive teaching campaign three weeks after the conference, the day I returned from a trip. The intensive campaign created the momentum we needed. The support and encouragement we received for this campaign, coming from both within and outside of the community, were like a balm for our hearts. The campaign enabled us to meet 37 souls who were interested in the programme. We now have nine beautiful youth who participate regularly in our group.
The keys to success in Sherbrooke were systematic preparation (locating a neighbourhood, making three preliminary visits to it, informing the neighbourhood organizations, reserving a room in advance, etc.), the amazing support we received from the institutions and the sustained collaboration of all members of the Bahá’í community, trust in the proven instruments of the Universal House of Justice (including the junior youth spiritual empowerment programme), perseverance, commitment to attend the group no matter what, and the systematic preparation of the group meetings. These efforts were supported by divine assistance which made everything go smoothly. This experience gave me a chance to taste again the joy of serving and of receiving God’s confirmation. The following quotation summarizes our experience well: “By the Lord of the Kingdom! If one arise to promote the Word of God with a pure heart, overflowing with the love of God and severed from the world, the Lord of Hosts will assist him with such a power as will penetrate the core of the existent beings.” (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá V2, p. 348)
– Andréanne Bigonnesse
