Responsibility

Responsibility. It's something we all have and do our best to uphold. Sometimes it's not enjoyable and sometimes it is exhausting, but it still is there. Aside from maybe the two drunk homeless guys in my town, everyone's got some type of responsibility. Here, the kids are supposed to go to school and they often become the small-errand runners for the adults. Most of the kids also have work responsibilities either out in the fields (boys) or at home (girls). The teens that continue their education here have the responsibility to get decent grades so that the government keeps helping out with financial support. If they choose not to study, then there previous kid duties increase to full time - cooking, cleaning for the young women and field work for the young men. These roles are consistent throughout adulthood with the additional responsibility of child-bearing for the woman and hopefully some type of income for the man. Every case is a little different, but this is pretty much the gist of things.

I came into this town and started attempting to organize some of the people to give them some relief of their typical responsibilities. The women in the shampoo group have gotten more responsibilities with the management of making and selling a product, and the youth in my youth group have learned about the responsibility of working on community projects. I didn't start the savings group in my town, but the people in the group are learning about responsibility with their money. After numerous small successes, I was hoping to see some larger development in my groups - responsibility among the members in place of the responsibility I had with the groups. I want to see various youth in the group taking charge of smaller projects, leading. I want to see the women in the youth group changing roles so that they can all get a better sense of how things work and so that one woman isn't doing all of the work.

What I've noticed though is that people are afraid of extra responsibility. I think it is due to a lack of experience and being afraid they're going to mess everything up. They haven't had people pushing them their whole lives teaching them it is good to take responsibility and you learn from your mistakes. When I ask for volunteers to take charge of various tasks in my youth group not a single soul seems willing. I left a meeting a few weeks ago to show that someone needed to take charge because I'm not always going to be around and it is okay to try something new. After I left, one young man took charge and helped lead a project. Last minute (the morning of the event), he backed out, never showed up, and dumped the responsibility back on me and the other youth group coordinator. Man. We've had similar experiences in the shampoo group. There are three women who lead and are pretty good at it, but when we ask if there is anyone else willing to give one of their roles a try to relieve some of their duty, the room goes silent. They all tell the three leaders what a great job they are doing and that they couldn't do such a good job.

So I think one of the next steps is leadership training. People here need to learn it is okay to try and they can get help from others (being a leader doesn't mean doing everything, it means delegating), and that making mistakes is a part of the learning. I think with the Catholic idea of sin and blame, people are afraid of taking minor risks. Next goal: inspire some leaders in this community to strut their stuff.