Jereme Johnson is a program assistant at the Escambia County 4-H Youth Development, a local branch of the 4-H organization. This non-profit develops citizenship, leadership, responsibility, and life skills in youth through experiential learning programs and a positive youth development approach. He and his organization are always ready to receive international visitors and explore the organization’s programs.
Many of the international visitors he meets want to learn more about or replicate the 4-H program in their respective countries. Demonstrating a similar enthusiasm for the program, he has stayed in touch with a number of the visitors to help them integrate his programming methods into their work, a textbook example of the wonders that international exchange can produce.
“[My coworkers and I] adapt the program for [the visitors] to have an interactive experience, so they aren’t just sitting down and watching and instead get to interact with the youth and volunteers.” These hands-on experiences allow for a better idea of how the organization runs programs and provides youths the opportunity to learn about different cultures.
Throughout his time with 4-H, Johnson has witnessed how exchanges impact both youths and the staff. Many of the students at 4-H have become more aware of the world around them and become more interested in different countries and cultures. Johnson laughed as he remembered how the American youth and some Brazilian youth had shown each other different dances on one exchange. “Now, every time I talk to the kids, they talk about how they made one of the dances famous in Brazil,” he chuckled.
The staff also learn from the visitors, who sometimes share the difficulties they face in their home countries. These discussions led Johnson and his coworkers to adapt to the challenges in our region and address different topics they had not thought of before. These adaptations help the staff focus on new issues and give the youth even more examples of how to become active in the community.
To see the work 4-H does or if you would like more information on how to volunteer, visit their Facebook at www.facebook.com/UFIFASEscCounty.
