Miriam: Tell me about the word youth and how it applies to you? If it applies to you, or how it no longer applies to you?

Jos:

Well, by Head & Hands definition, I am a youth. I’m almost twenty-five, so I guess I've got another year. I.. I identify as a youth I guess because I don’t identify as an adult really or maybe I just don’t take myself that seriously or something, but I think that I can work with young people and relate to them as a young person, or I’m not that far a distance from their own experiences, or I think I’m someone whom people can listen to and are willing to listen to because of that. Was your question more about like my experience?

Miriam: It’s a question like what kind of power it gives you to be a youth working in a youth organization or how you…?

Jos: I think it gives me a lot of power….

Miriam: How it may have impacted you in your professional life?

Jos:

Yeah, I think it gives me a lot of power in a really interesting way because I can go into a classroom and ask the teacher to leave and watch everybody just let their hair down and relax and talk about things in front of me. Because I’m a stranger and they’re not going to see me again, so maybe they’re more comfortable asking certain questions with me, but I do try to be very approachable too, and I think that’s done in the fact that I am relatively close in age to these people, or I’m not old enough that maybe they’re not looking up to me at all, or don’t relate to me, or I don’t relate to them.

I think it’s done in just a basic presentation and how I talk to youth or just present myself physically. And the same goes for the volunteers. They’re all youth themselves, and nobody is told what to wear when they go into a classroom, and this has actually been an issue with some schools, but we take a hard line with it. We’re not going to ask anyone to put on a suit and tie it when they go in there. We want people to be themselves, and I think that’s what makes them interesting to youth, and a cool example or role model, like you can do this really cool work, and you can be yourself, and you don’t have to be ultra professional or really strict.