Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program
The JYP focuses on 3 main objectives to support junior youth in their development:
1. Enhancing the Power of Expression
2. Building Decision-Making Capabilities
3. Enhance Capacities for Service
A safe & Positive Space
The junior youth period is a time of rapid growth and change, during which young people are highly influenced by the world around them through advertising, media, and peers. The JYSEP supports these young individuals, fostering a safe, positive space where they can work together without fear of ridicule, develop their unique capacities, and contribute to the common good.
Physical, Intellectual, and Emotional changes
Falling between the ages of 11 and 15 and representing a transition from childhood to youth, young adolescents—referred to as “junior youth”—experience rapid physical, intellectual, and emotional changes. Their spiritual powers expand. A new level of awareness fosters in them an increased interest in profound questions and in their talents and abilities. During this short and critical period, ideas about the individual and society that may very well shape the rest of their lives are formed. However, delight at these new powers is often combined with feelings of worry, discomfort, and doubt that may produce contradictions in behaviour. Directing their new abilities towards selfless service to humanity is therefore needed at this age.
Some views of junior youth do not cast this period of life in a positive light. Popular views, for instance, regard this age as full of confusion and crises. Such thoughts foster conditions in which undesirable patterns of behaviour are spread. A proper understanding of this age is that of selfless young people with “an acute sense of justice, eagerness to learn about the universe and a desire to contribute to the construction of a better world”.
The Role of Animators
There are Team of Animators in Whitehorse Centre of Learning. Animators play a key role in JYSEP, guiding junior youth in a way that fosters openness and shared learning. As co-learners, animators create a supportive environment where junior youth can ask questions, explore ideas, and grow together. Animators undergo formal training, work in pairs, and follow safety protocols to ensure a secure and nurturing environment.
“They assist junior youth to navigate through a crucial stage of their lives and to become empowered to direct their energies toward the advancement of civilisation.”
Junior Youth Books
The JYSEP Curriculum includes fifteen books, each tailored to different age groups to foster age-appropriate learning, these books offer junior youth a chance to explore moral and spiritual realities through discovery, rather than instruction, facilitated by the animators. All of the titles are concerned with developing language skills and the power of expression. Some in the first category also address mathematical concepts and social issues, while others seek to prepare young people to approach the investigation of physical, social and spiritual reality in a scientific manner.
Is this Program Religious?
No, it is not a religious education programme. However, the material is Baha’i-inspired, which means that the books do mention God and do include spiritual / moral concepts.
Many members from different religions—Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, … and non-religious backgrounds find that the program complements their beliefs. Junior youth and their families can preview the books that will be studied in the group.
