SquibS teenagers showed their talents at conference in Münster.

The 15^th of September a group of 11 kids did a presentation at the ECHA conference on Giftedness in Munster, Germany. The youngest was 13 the oldest 20. They made it into an experience no one will ever forget. (ECHA = European Council of High Ability)

They spoke to the public (in English) and told their personal story about what they have grown through in their relative short lives. And how SquibS played an important role in that.

SquibS is a foundation founded by Wynand Berndsen en Anita Wuestman (my wife). SquibS organises events for high ability youth in the age of 12 to about 20. The events vary from weekends in a holiday farm to city trips and Survivals. This year the activities expanded to more serious aspects of the life of high potentials, like participation in governmental meetings. The presentation in Munster is a perfect example of that. As is the participation of a competition called The Power of Small.

The Power of Small addresses the needs of people in underserved communities. Our offer is to strengthen entrepreneurial skills in local economies by expending the way SquibS is organised, to different areas in Europe. As we think youth in Spain, France and Greece can use a little (or more) of the spirit we see in our kids. Especially teenagers in countries that feel the burden of the economic crises need to challenge their hope and mental and emotional muscles. And that is what SquibS is about.

For their story to be told, the participants in the Munster Conference had to discover what makes our SquibS Youth community this successful. They came together several times and found out, using Value Engineering techniques and 120 sticky notes, WHY they like SquibS so much and HOW we make it tick this way. Together they came up with exactly all the values that, if clustered well, add up to the levels of consciousness and development Anita and I use so often in Spiral Dynamics. (See earlier blog with a summary of SD, klick here!) 

As we explained the different qualities of the variety in paradigms / levels in Spiral Dynamics, they started to recognise their own development and even where they stumbled and got hurt. And luckily for our practitioners they also feel the potential of the aspects they did not already fully incorporate.

In the next blog I will list the principles and goals we follow at SquibS. If you compare them with the levels of Spiral Dynamics one will see that we cover all the levels. That is what makes SquibS so powerful. We thrive for the Green and Yellow (SD colour code) but do not neglect the earlier colours. And in the way we do that we let the youth organise their own events, as they did with the presentation. 

They discusses the content, agreed with the conclusions and found a place to add their own stories. One created the presentation lay-out, our daughter ironed all the logo’s and post-it images on special T-shirts and so we really co-created the whole job. Which ended yesterday whit a very successful presentation at the conference.

Not only did they get the message trough, including a difficult theoretical part. They also got into the heads and hearts of the audience. All the stories came out so clear, pure and authentic, with all the suffering and pain underneath and the proudness to be able to tell it on this platform, that everyone got touched by emotion. Every kid got applauded and at the end the compliments were unbelievable.

In the tradition of SquibS we asked everyone to leave a feedback massage (this time on the T-shirt of our kids). This broke the emotional ice at the end and the audience and our teenagers really got in contact. The group got invitations for other conferences, personal stories were told and individual reactions were shared. 

At the end it felt more like being part of a piece of art then being part of a presentation. The vibe in the room, the flow of every one of us and the reactions out of the audience, they added up the same way as the events of SquibS do in our regular camps and events. This time sharing it with professors, researchers, consultants en teachers, specialised in - and knowing everything about giftedness, but who, as one told us, never had an experience in their profession so far,  that emotionally grasped them like this.

Looking at it from a distance we can say SquibS unlockes the same energy as other organisations want to release, that I am part of, like the groups I mentioned in earlier blogs, that believe we have to find new (Green and Yellow) ways to organise and work. But, instead of talking about it, at SquibS we practice what we preach. And the beauty of it is that our practitioners experience the value of it and incubate it really easy. Making it useful for themselves and they are even capable of sharing it with others. 

On the 15^th a 15 year old girl taught the audience the quality of organizing together in co-creation (Green) and how she herself struggles with trying to control and seeking structure from the start (Bleu). To explain this to the audience, the group made a drawing to underline what they see at SquibS, which looks like drawings of highly educated professionals in conferences like the STOOS Stampede. Unbelievable strong and intelligent, but also logic and understandable, as they are used to alternative ways of organizing at SquibS.

I really feel like we are able to open up the world to the possibilities of new generations by having young people discovering their potential. Doing things in their new and creative way, getting out of too much planning, structure and control into the field of possibilities, co-creation, connectedness and synergy. I hope that they do not all have to go the difficult route some of our SquibS kids did, but I am sure these experiences will make a difference in their lives and that of others!

More info about SquibS?   www.squibs.nl

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