The Wall

Objective: To help participants to self-analyze and examine the economic misfortunes of young people and to share methods that other youth, as well as themselves, have used and can use to overcome these barriers to achievement.

Time: 60-90 minutes.

Materials: Flip Chart, tape, markers, and large post-it notes.

How it works: The Wall is a peer-centered learning exercise designed to allow participants to self-identify obstacles to success and methods for overcoming these challenges.

Part 1
The Wall starts when a question, usually- AWhy are young people unemployed or underemployed," is posed to a group of youth. The question should be written across two large, horizontal pieces of flip-chart paper and should form the heading of the AWall.@ Participants should be informed that each one of their responses to the question will form a Abrick@ in the unemployment/underemployment Wall that, despite the good economy, is stopping many youth from succeeding and is severely limiting youth's opportunities. Youth should be made aware that the goal of the exercise to fill up the Wall with bricks.

Each time a young person responds with a brick in the Wall, the leader should draw the brick within the Wall along with its appropriate heading (i.e. laziness, lack of skills). After each response, the leader should probe youth to explain their answer more fully with questions like: AWhat do you mean by that? How does what you just said lead to unemployment or underemployment?@ It is important to note that the leader should not editorialize or make judgments about youth=s answers. The power of this exercise is that it's completely youth-driven; leaders shouldn't act as authority figures or even teachers, but as facilitators who must refocus and redirect youth, who may wander off subject or conflict with one another, on the issue of why youth are unemployed and underemployed. After the Wall is filled with bricks, the leader should acknowledge that the given factors create a Wall that is indeed difficult to break through.

Part 2
Ask the group to think for a few minutes about the young people whom they know who broke through this Wall, and then to identify what tool, behavior, attitude, action, or resource that young person used to overcome their challenges. Have each youth write down their response on a sticky pad note and pin in up on the Wall. The leader, when explaining this part of the activity, should always give young people the option of keeping their response in their head and sharing with the group as some youth may be unable to write or be ashamed of their writing or spelling ability.

Part 3
Once every young person has placed a sticky note on the Wall, the leader should pull off the sticky notes one at a time and ask at least a few young people to share and explain their answers. In this way, youth will share with one another, through a peer-centered learning process, strategies that people they know have utilized to break through the unemployment/underemployment Wall.

Part 4
After the sharing in part 3 is finished, challenge youth to think about themselves and their relationship to the unemployment/underemployment Wall. Ask young people to identify their own most prominent challenge in breaking through the Wall, and tell them to write down on a post-it note what they need to do to overcome this challenge and then to post it on the wall. Take a sampling of the post-it notes and ask youth to offer advice on how to address these challenges. Don't single out the youth who listed their challenge but simply say, "Someone said their largest challenge to getting a good job is being on time. Does anyone here know how this person can manage their time more effectively?" Facilitate a sharing amongst youth and a commitment from youth to begin to take the necessary steps to overcome their struggles and achieve their goals.

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