A Morning with Merle

The Youthzones staff was lucky to spend a morning with Merle Friedman (PH.D) and we had the chance to talk about life-skills and life change. What struck me is how friendly and appreciative Merle was, not showing off her knowledge, but encouraging us and helping us carefully. A few things stood out: Always focus on the positive, discuss and look at strengths of a person, not weaknesses. Also, try to help people not to make mistakes that will lead to shame, most people already feel bad enough. Further we learnt about resilience, helping someone develop a strong character that can bounce back after something bad, not just helping people after the problem. Hope we heard can also be called learnt optimism, so hope depends on our situation and opportunities, our friends, but also on how we choose to think and speak to ourselves!

As we spoke I also realised that Doctor is despite his jokes too smart and deep, although he sometimes struggle to put English words to it :-)  Doc always says we as leaders must be stupid, that is the key to helping, and the fancy word for this is "joining" getting close to others by showing our silly or weak or scared side.

As a team, and personally, I learnt a lot in the morning, not just knowledge, but the type of learning that change me, seeing how I can improve something. Merle practice what she preach, she models her lessons, she lets it flow, without being over concerned with structure or agendas. Her advice also made me appreciate again to work with Roelf Meyer, who always support us and give us freedom, never insulting and never negative.

I also realised that my parents raised me, not with shouting and rules, but with love, freedom and encouragement.

Views: 61

Comment

You need to be a member of Youthzones to add comments!

Join Youthzones

Comment by Maitse Otto Twala on May 20, 2013 at 3:36pm

WE ARE HERE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

I grew up in the village in Qwa qwa and came to Intabazwe at the age 5. Today I'm 31, and i know the ins and outs of Intabazwe. I have seen most of our promising brothers and sister with lots of talents bowing down to drugs and abuse from those who are full of evil and jealous. i have my friends some are my age and some are younger than me, they have talent they are our best in the location every football fan shout their names (don't forget my name - ha,ha,ha). Looking at them we saw professionals in them, we saw people who will make difference in our location, we saw brothers and sisters that we will be proud of all the time; but that did not happen due to "politics" and jealousy, evil spirit, drugs and not having proper channels to take this talent to next level. We had our own Jabu Pules, Doctor Khumalos, Brian Baloyis ( you name them) of Intabazwe. But today they are nowhere to be found - due to all the reasons named above and others. looking at some of my former opponents/teammates today i understand that to some life was not as they hoped for, but to some drugs and selfishness caused them their careers. so here i am today with some still playing beautiful game, we say - WE ARE HERE TO MAKE CHANGE, TRY TO TAKE THIS TALENT TO THE NEXT LEVEL, NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES; WE WILL FIGHT LIKE SPARTANS SOLDIERS TO MAKE SURE THAT THIS TALENTS WE HAVE DOES NOT GO TO WASTE LIKE OUR TALENTS DID. I coached about 50 youngsters since 2003, some today are in drugs and some are in jail and some are hopeless due to not knowing which directions they have to take. But i believe that God send His son (Youthzones) to Intabazwe, to take us to the promise land that we all believe we are destined for. To those who believe in what the sons says will live a joyful life and to those who don't believe will fill the heat. But they have to know that they will always be our brothers and God is the only way to success. To our brothers from youthzones - please never give up on us we need your help in taking this talent to the highest level and we know with you we will take them there. And to Intabazwe community we say _ this is the time to take a stand and make sure that our younger brothers and sisters never go the route that we did, we have to show them the better way. i hope that what is said here will make Intabazwe a better place to live on. I know that is not going to be easy but we have to push harder than never before.      

 

WITH MIGHTY LORD ON OUR SIDE WE WILL NEVER FAIL - believe me as i say and know what God has done for me. 

© 2024   Created by Admin FSSA.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service