Jump to the future – me at the age of 30

Learning objectives and the skills developed

To encourage the youth to start thinking about their future (in general, not about their professional future)
To let the youth discover the link between a “good future” and a conscious choice of a profession

Materials:

A4 paper sheets, coloured pencils, flipchart, markers

Presentation:

This is the exercise to practiced individually by each participant and then discussed in a forum of the group . Here are the instructions you should provide to participants.

1. Say: Please imagine yourself in an age of 30. How you will look like? Where you will be living? How will your flat / house look like? With whom you will be living? How will you spend your day?
2. After few seconds say: Don’t share your images, but draw them. You have 10 minutes to draw how your life will look like, when you are 30 years old.
3. After drawings are done: Please choose a colleague to present your drawings. Each for you will have about 5 minutes for presentation. Look for similarities.
4. After speaking in pairs is over (i.e. after 10 minutes) ask: I would like to note at the flipchart elements you identified as common. What similarities did you identify?
   • participants reports similarities
   • trainer note at the flipchart – we recommend you to use a mind map method of taking notes. At the end you may come to a graph like the one on the right.
5. At the end of exercise summarize what similarities did you note.
6. Ask the youth what this exercise made to them, what reflections they have after this exercise.
7. If the youth don’t say it explicitly, underline that there is a direct link between a “good future” (=being good looking, having a job, etc.) and a conscious choice of a profession. They should start to think about their profession now.

Possible Variations:

Encourage your participants to draw images. If they protest, because not “being skilled enough”, “not having skills how to draw”, say that they can put a drawing simply; drawings shouldn’t be an art performance, but only reflect main ideas.