OFFICIALS PUT YOUTH-SERVICE ISSUES TO THE TALK TEST

In early September, Children's Express traveled to Chicago to cover a symposium sponsored by Lilly Endowment. The topic was citizenship and its place in volunteering. Gathering program directors of service organizations, White House officials, national service program officers, foundation program officers and directors and academics, the group's six-hour discussion focused on the meaning of citizenship and the relationship to service.

A report on the symposium can be obtained by writing to: Lilly Endowment, 2801 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, Ind. 46208.

Supporters of youth service programs say there is a definite need for the service movement and hope that participation in such work will change the way young people think about their communities.

Critics argue that national service is a feel-good idea financed with other people's money or charge charge that service programs teach students to feel sorry for those supposedly neglected by society and to view handouts as solutions to social problems.

Both sides agree, however, on the need to define "service": Can it be considered "service" if kids are getting paid for volunteering? Can it be labeled "volunteering" if it is mandatory? When do volunteer activities cross the line and become too activist or political?

Matthew Countryman, former program director for the Ella Baker Institute, believes service works "if we do with, rather than do for (a community)."

Working from within

The Ella Baker Institute, based in North Carolina, is a leadership network of black college students who train other students to develop projects for children in their campus communities.

In keeping with that aim, Countryman suggests that engaging the people of a community to solve community problems is more successful than bringing in outsiders.

"We're saying that you don't have to leave your community (to solve social problems). We'll help you stay and together you can deal with the problems. . ."

Martha Diepenbrock is executive director of the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, which employs people 18 to 23 years old to perform community improvement projects for public and non-profit groups. She agrees that service needs to be rooted in the community but that it also needs to affect the young volunteers and their connection to society.

"It's a way to learn"

Diepenbrock believes that volunteering, while not for everyone, gives the volunteer practical life experiences.

"Sometimes it's a way for people to feel like they belong to something more than their own little life," she said. "It's a way to learn about themselves."

Ed Skloot, executive director of the Surdna Foundation, agrees.

"Everybody is the recipient of service - the individuals living in communities, the individual giving it and the individual receiving it."

The Surdna Foundation is a New York-based family foundation that funds environmental and urban-revitalization programs.

Diepenbrock hopes one of the by-products of service is an American public that will know what it is to be a citizen.

"Citizenship means that we recognize that we're all connected, that you can't just operate like you are an island . . ."

But Skloot worries that a service program that has a stipend and an educational grant attached isn't true voluntarism.

Another area of concern has been how to determine when volunteering becomes too political. Policymakers debate whether volunteers should be able to participate in activities such as rent strikes or protests.

Countryman believes that no matter what kind of service you do, at some level you have to deal with politics.

"Whether you're in church, in school, at some level, you have to understand how politics is just the way organizations work," he said.

Smita Singh, from the federal Commission on National and Community Service, cited how a youth summit in Los Angeles helped volunteers look beyond the demands of their service work into the deeper needs of the community.

"Now, with a community problem-solving focus, (volunteers) don't just go to a home for the elderly and spend an hour a day with them," she said.

"They do that in the context of talking about why they are doing that, what the problem is, what is being done about the problem and what other players in the community are doing," she added.

Good works not enough

Skloot agrees that volunteers are most effective when they can look at the big picture.

"To make people go out and only do good works is not enough. To me the curriculum, the learning part, the civic education part, is an absolute crucial component to the wider issue of service," he said.

Harry Boyte, co-director of the Center for Democracy & Citizenship, thinks that service has great potential but could be misused.

"To many, National Service looks like a patronage operation for local politicians," he said. "The president talked that service is not a stand-alone program but is emblematic of a larger approach to civic renewal.

"Government only works well when it works in partnership with the citizens."

The big question, according to Diepenbrock, is: "How do we get more people (to) . . . take advantage of national service and (make sure) it doesn't become just another government program?"

EDITED BY: Leah Kidwell, 17; Robin Potasnik, 18