I accept the #FAST58 challenge- which is to either keep up a discipline for 58 days or give something up!
Well... I am doing both?
I am giving up TV and Youtube...which provides me with entertainment but also contributes to 80% of the time I spend procrastinating!
Also I am taking on the challenge of praying and meditating for 58 mins a day!
My motivation to take on this FAST challenge is a personal one...
I initially got involved with the FAST project in January 2016 after I finished uni and was searching for my first graduate role which allowed me to contribute to the development of young people with an organisation with values I shared. And lo and behold I found it in the lead youth worker role with FAST where the focus was to develop a youth programme aimed at engaging and developing young people in the local area.
Their values of love, truth and radical compassion (which is a call to action for those in suffering) resonated strongly with me. And it was only through my time with FAST did I grow to understand what it means in practice... responding to insults with smiles- whilst still providing clear consequences and boundaries.
Setting time aside and effort to help them with CV's and job opportunities- only for them not to turn up even after promising they would. FAST and the community of Patmore we serve has taught me to look beneath surface behaviour to the root cause.
As much as I came with the intention of contributing, FAST has had a lot more to offer me than I have given. So after realising the situation with FAST, the team at FAST and I, personally are both faced with the challenge of persevering to set FAST up independently and advocating for resources and opportunities for those at FAST.
In London today, we have a knife crisis of youth who are losing their lives to violence but in society we have a crisis of losing a whole generation of youth because of a lack of investment to deal with root issues. FAST is MY STAND!!!
