The programme
A junior youth group is a group of young people who meet regulary with an animator — a youth a few years older — to study a sequence of texts together and to undertake projects in their own neighbourhood. The texts speak to questions junior youth are already asking: about character, about friendship, about purpose, about the choices they are beginning to face.
The programme is offered freely, without religious requirement, to junior youth of any background. In Ontario, groups are held in apartment buildings, in school clubs, in community centres, and in backyards and parks.
The animator
An animator is not a teacher in the conventional sense. They are an older companion — a young person who has chosen to walk alongside a junior youth group for a few years, helping the group to study, to discuss, to plan, and to act. The role transforms the animator as much as it transforms the group.
Service projects
Each group, in time, plans and carries out a project of service in their neighbourhood — cleaning a park, organizing a small class for younger children, hosting a community gathering, painting a mural, planting a garden. The project may start small but its significance is not.