living my 'why' - by Wole Akinbi
Greetings half full, llc partners, collaborators, family & friends! Wole Akinbi from half full, llc here, and this is my first blog for the business. Before I get into specifics, I wanted to briefly tell you all a little about myself. I am a Providence, R.I. native and I have lived in this city my entire life. One of the main things I appreciate about living in a small city is that accessibility to opportunities is easy if folks try. When I was in high school, whenever I was presented with an opportunity, I took full advantage. Now that I am an adult, I make it my business to create opportunities for young people who are just like I was in my high school years. If it were not for me participating in leadership camps, after school jobs, and summer learning programs, I would not be the functioning adult that I am today. Therefore, youth development is such a strong passion of mine, and why I love my role with half full, llc.
I facilitate youth development programs because youth development saved my life.
Growing up, I was mentored by adults who were genuinely interested in empowering kids and who believed that we could be successful. I learned how to take care of myself, how to prioritize goals, manage stress, and I had resources whenever I had questions or needed help. It was important for me to know adults who were trying to make a difference in my community because learning from them taught me how to pay it forward to the kids that I work with now.
Youth development is critical for our community because programs after school, with nonprofits, or in the community, are so limited in present day. We have close to 24,000 students in the Providence School District. There are amazing opportunities available to the youth in Providence, but unfortunately, there are not 24,000 opportunities lined up for all of them. My role at half full, llc is to provide youth development workshops, trainings, and retreats that are open to all teens in the city and throughout Rhode Island. Our youth development service offerings are available all year-round and are all aimed at empowering the young people we work with into being the best versions of themselves. Our favorite of our youth development services is our Youth Forwards®.
As part of half full, llc’s business model of giving back, we provide as many of these Forwards as we can at no cost to teenagers and their families.
Many kids sign up for half full, llc’s Youth Forwards to get out of the house for a few days in the summer, meet other students their age, engage in unique and fun workshops, learn about leadership and personal development, and have evidence of a productive summer activity for school. We have nearly 75 alumni who have attended our Youth Forwards. Some were hesitant at first, because they had very little experience trying new things, but all of them learned something new.
We call our experiences Forwards - because retreat can mean to move back or recoil. And that’s not how we do things.
A Forward is typically two nights and three days long. These retreats help to change the perception of youth development for our young people. We foster optimism in the kids by teaching them one of our core values – no judgement. By challenging their assumptions, we give them the opportunity to embrace youth development by showing them how they can benefit from it. Without youth development programming, they will rarely encounter a space to have discussions about real issues, to ask questions, and to talk about what is important them. They often don’t know what they’re missing.
half full, llc has seen many changes over the last year. Looking at the landscape for youth development, some adjustments have been made in our approach to address shifting needs. The emergence of hybrid and virtual learning has become the new way of life for students as we adapt to life with and beyond COVID-19, but it clearly leaves gaps.
According to the results of a poll we recently administered to Providence students about their preferred learning styles, only 14.29% (8) preferred distance learning, 19.64% (11) preferred hybrid learning and the majority, 66.07% (37) of students said they prefer in-person learning.
The results of our poll reinforced what we were learning in our conversations with the youth we work with: they don’t like virtual learning and they don’t find it as productive as in-person learning. And as much as teenagers dislike authority, they know that they need and want accountability and guidance from adults.
One of the most successful workshops we created to stay connected to our young people in the last year (and to make up for having to cancel our in-person Youth Forward programming last summer) is “Wednesday’s w/Wo.” This is a virtual space I created for half full, llc to host weekly check-ins with young people in our network. These sessions happen every Wednesday and run from 4:00pm – 6:00pm. High school students join to share their progress in school, have conversations with half full, llc staff about personal challenges they face, current events, and topics that are on their minds. Having this space has challenged me to be more creative in my planning process for youth development and has given me insight into what young people need the most right now.
I want to teach the youth that we work with to approach things with an open mind, and how to lead with vulnerability and speak up for themselves.
Today, a lot of young people are using their voices – but social media is one thing – in-person is more challenging and speaking to adults is even harder to learn. Creating these spaces helps us teach kids to stand up for their values and not succumb to group think, and we have been able to reinforce these lessons with programming like Wednesdays w/ Wo.
There is so much more work to be done!
With the recent uptick in violence in our communities, the many reminders of injustice and the continued uncertainties our youth are facing, if we as adults do not demonstrate the right way to do things for our young adults, then they will pick up our bad habits. It is our responsibility to provide the tools necessary for our kids to break generational curses, NOT keep them going. That is why youth development is so essential, we are fostering the next crop of great leaders! They deserve our time and guidance. We cannot let them down!
support our youth development efforts by purchasing half full merch!
every season a new item is designed and sold to fund our Youth Forwards.
Forward® is a registered trademark of half full, llc.