We were initially very reticent to allow him to come with us. Last year in Charlotte, we'd seen very few younglings (which is what I call tweens & teens) - either they were babies and toddlers, or they were old enough to participate in Youth Caucus (which starts at 14). There was not childcare available at GA unless you had a hotel that could refer you to babysitting services in the area - and anyone with kids can attest to how ridiculously expensive that would be for an entire week.
Yes, General Assembly is primarily about the business of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and congregational polity. However, it's also about creating community for a week, networking with others on issues that matter, and having the opportunity to learn from others. Those last three are all things that younglings of all ages can benefit from.
Apparently, someone on the GA Planning Committee (or someone who had their ear), realized that entire families would be coming to Phoenix - that the younglings raised as Unitarian Universalists (UUs) would be bugging parents to be able to participate in this historic social justice oriented GA. We were surprised and grateful to see during online registration that there would not only be a place for younglings at GA, but that there would be age-appropriate programming for them.
Our son participated in "Justice Camp" - programming that was designed for younglings ages 10 to 14. You can read more about Justice Camp and see pictures by clicking here. Justice Camp was critical in providing our son with a positive experience at his very first General Assembly. He learned about issues relating to the environment, class, immigration, and the Doctrine of Discovery. He learned about the vocabulary of justice work. He helped with the "Beat the Heat" backpack project and did a water scavenger hunt. He played games, made new friends, and even got to go swimming.
Now, to be fair and give my youngling's voice a chance to be heard, he would have liked more swimming and a little less learning. He was bored by lecture parts of programming (generally true of him & lectures all the time), but he really enjoyed the field trips and got a lot out of the hand-on learning opportunities they had. He was so animated when he talked about the presentation by the Phoenix Dreamers, a group working on educating others and calling for passage of the DREAM Act. And he is really psyched that he has friends in Houston, San Francisco, and a bunch of other places across the country.
I readily admit that I don't know a single youngling under the age of 15 who cares about congregational polity, my own included. However, I do know younglings through my work as a youth advisor that do care about the business of the UUA, about the Congregational Study/Action Issues, about the Responsive Resolutions that get brought before delegates at GA. I don't know if next year's GA planning currently includes anything like Justice Camp, but I really hope that it will because:
- It allows families to make the trip to GA together
- It allows our younglings to begin developing deep relationships before they even get to Youth Caucus
- It's an opportunity to have a hands-on component to learning about our faith that doesn't necessarily always happen in our congregations
- GA becomes intentionally multi-generational - if we want that in our congregations, why wouldn't we expect our GAs to be uplifting that as an ideal to aspire to?
- It exposes our younglings to the idea that even at the national level, we all have a voice and we live our Fifth Principle
- Attendance of younglings at GA is an opportunity unlike any other to expose them to the idea of congregational polity not only being about congregations being self-governing, but that it's important to have relationships with each other
- GA is an opportunity to experience worship in a completely different setting and context than our congregations
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